One More Morning
by ericajanebarry
Summary: "Lift my eyes to the dawning to see life start again/Just to see one more morning/Just to feel it all begin" -Steve Winwood. Richard and Isobel share more in common than ever they would have believed. Of loss, and remembrance, and finding a way forward together. Now rated M; possible TW for mentions of pregnancy loss. Eventual Richobel sweetness, I promise.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: When I said that I wanted to take today and write, this is not what I had envisioned. I have been working (plodding, trudging, struggling mightily) on the next chapter of Sweet Seasons, but something has just felt ... _off_ to me. I think I've determined it's an issue of continuity.**

 **So this piece contains spoilers for something that will be revealed in the upcoming chapter of SS. And I should warn that there are mentions (not graphic) of miscarriage. Be encouraged, however, that this piece, when complete, will be a story of restoration and fluffy Richobel sweetness. I would never hurt my babies or cause harm to their marriage. But before we can get to the redemptive bit, we have the backstory. I'm sorry it's not happy yet (though I think you will see it does have its moments), but I've done my level best to keep the story relatable and plausible assuming it were canon.**

 **Mother's Day is hard for me, folks. What can I say?**

 **For my Nan, whom I watched lose her youngest, and for T, who has lost two, and J, who has effectively lost five. Only love today.**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

 **And I who went to sleep as two  
Woke up as one  
Now only you remain¹**

* * *

She is twenty-one years old on her first Mothering Sunday, and to date no one knows the secret she carries within. They attend church together - she and Reginald, her brother Edward, his wife Alice and their three little boys, and her mum. It's the first year without her father, and she squeezes her mother's hand as they walk past the bench outside the vestry doors that was placed there in his honour. The morning passes with more laughter than sorrow as Eddie and she recount their favorite childhood memories.

In the restaurant at lunchtime Reg casts an astonished glance her way when she declines the wine.

"Are you?" he mouths.

She nods at him, her eyes glistening, and he enfolds her hand in his. He begins to chuckle and she squeezes his elbow as if to say, _Stop or you'll give us away!_ He manages to keep silent but his shoulders are shaking and soon she cannot contain her own joy. They are married a year now, both of them deeply steeped their pursuit of medical degrees, and the timing is far from ideal. But they are so very much in love, and have been since she was sixteen and he nineteen, and love will find a way. She leans into him as he announces to her family that by the time they all gather a year from today, there will be a third little Crawley, and somehow her father's absence is redeemed in the knowledge that new life abounds.

A month passes, and on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in the women's loo of the university library her unrivalled bliss comes to a shattering end. She knows enough to know that this can't be right - the waves of nausea that don't stop coming and the blinding pain radiating through her lower back and her belly. And the blood. So much blood. She retches until she cannot see straight and hugs her knees to her chest, shaking with fear.

A half hour later she has pulled herself together, with the help of overnight sanitary pads, to meet Reg in the quadrangle as they do every day before his afternoon internship. As he approaches her from the direction of the mathematics building he knows something is amiss. Her eyes are swollen, her arms wrapped round her own midsection.

"Take me to A&E, love," she says weakly as he scoops her into his arms. "It's gone, I know it's gone."

 **oOo**

The following year she gives the family gathering a miss as she lies in bed recovering from a D&C. Reggie was loath to leave her side but she'd insisted that he go and be with her mother, both because she could not and because the bond between her husband and her mum was like nothing she had ever seen, and they would each one need the other on such a day as this.

He misses her, and all he can think as he sits in the pew between Fiona and a heavily-pregnant Alice is that he's failing her. He has trained in this, obstetrics. _Is_ training. It is his area of specialty and yet it has afforded him no greater insight into why his wife: beautiful, young, healthy and vibrant, has lost two babies in less than a year. Fiona picks up on his distress and links her arm through his. The colour of her eyes could not be more different to her daughter's, but their shape, and the fact that when he looks into them he gets the feeling she can see straight into his soul, are so reminiscent of Isobel that it nearly makes him gasp.

"Patience, my son," she tells him.

At home that night he lies with Isobel curled against his chest. They are young, she tells him with a confidence he guesses is borne of being her mother's child, and their entire lives are still in front of them. Perhaps they aren't meant to have children of their own. Perhaps this will free them up to travel, to use the training they are acquiring in the service of those in desperate need. He whispers to her as his fingertips trace the length of her spine that he heard a guest lecturer from Médecins Sans Frontières* speak in his immunology class last week.

Medical missions have been on her heart from a young age, and she tells him now in the darkness of their bedroom, brokenhearted but clinging determinedly to hope, that she thinks they should look into volunteering with the Red Cross when classes break up for the summer.

She spends the next two Mothering Sundays cradling Ethiopian children orphaned in Addis Ababa during the Red Terror. Food is in short supply; tuberculosis is taking its toll on the very young and the elderly. She and Reg spend school breaks administering inoculations and food rations, desperately trying to stem the rising tide of sociopolitical unrest. Their hearts are heavy, but their arms are full.

 **oOo**

She is twenty-five the first time she holds a child of her own. Matthew Reginald Crawley is born into his father's arms in the early hours of a rainy March morning. Her heart soars with joy and relief as she nurses her son, the both of them cradled in Reg's embrace. Her labour was protracted and excruciating as the baby's skull pressed on her spine, and her progression stalled twice. Her mother had held her as she pushed hour after worrisome hour.

"Mumma, will you take him?" Isobel asks when the babe is finished feeding.

"Are you sure?" Fiona replies with a glance at her son-in-law, who nods. Kissing the swollen, exhausted face of her daughter, Fiona takes her grandson in her arms, walking him back and forth in front of the windows. In the bed Isobel clings to Reginald as the both of them weep for the children they have lost and the son who is finally here, safe and healthy and nearly full term. Isobel has carried him for thirty-six weeks, no small feat after her previous losses at eight and nine weeks respectively.

As her daughter and son-in-law reflect on the birth of their son, it is Fiona, with the infant in her arms - _her baby's baby_ -, who treasures in her heart the experience of life having come full-circle. And it's then that she realises the date.

With a smile, she says, "It's Mothering Sunday."

 **The sun is here, my love, my love  
My sun; our sun complete²**

* * *

It is Matthew's thirteenth birthday when he and his grandmother take the train down to London. They are meeting his parents, who have been attending a medical conference in the city this week. He has been doing administrative work in their medical practice to earn some money of his own and while his mates are spending their savings on Mega-CD games and pagers, he has arranged with his father to take his mum and grandmother to dinner at the Ritz.

Matthew is a well-rounded lad, popular among his peers and a champion junior rugby player. He is also an excellent student; having recently been accepted to Eton, he will matriculate after the summer holidays. He has known from age ten that he wants to go to Oxford, that he wants to read law.

 **oOo**

 _Initially he had worried that this would disappoint his parents, but his grandmother swiftly silenced his concern._

 _"Have you any idea how long your mum and da waited for you to come along, lad?" she had asked him._

 _"Well, I know they were married five years before I was born, but I thought that had to do with them being in school."_

 _As she had baked a batch of shortbread biscuits in her kitchen, Fiona told Matthew of his parents' history, beginning with their meeting when Isobel was aged fourteen and Reginald seventeen. She'd shared her daughter's determination, at age twelve, that she would never marry, and how quickly her tune had changed when Reginald Crawley had started as a clerical assistant in the family's medical practice. She'd recounted the time Reginald had come to her and her husband John, Isobel's father, to ask for their daughter's hand in marriage when she was eighteen and how Reginald and Isobel, newly married, had worked their way through medical school._

 _"The point is that you show a great deal of determination, and you come by it honest. Your parents were very young when they started out. They knew what they wanted and they made it happen. Now tell me, has either one of them ever missed a match of yours, or a programme at school?"_

 _Matthew had thought for a moment. "Never, not one time, even if they've both been at work all week."_

 _"Precisely," she had told him. "They determined that you are their highest priority, and that means they'll forgo everything else to put you first. Now, how could they possibly be disappointed in you for wanting to read law when they know how diligent you are in your studies and your determination comes straight from them?"_

 _"There's something else, Gran," he'd said._

 _"Well, go on then! Out with it!"_

 _"I've won a scholarship for the upcoming year at Eton. I know that Mother and Dad said the money's no concern, but I'd rather they use it to fund the relief efforts they used to support before I was born. When we go to London I want to tell them. Will you help me arrange it?"_

 _Matthew had never seen his grandmother speechless. There was never any question as to how his mother had come by her talkativeness. But on that day in her kitchen he had watched as Fiona Turnbull was caught completely wrong-footed by his news. What thirteen-year-old boy thinks like this? Fiona had marveled._

 _"Gran?" Matthew had said, "Are you alright?"_

 _"Oh, lad," she'd exclaimed, throwing her arms around him, "Now that is what I'm talking about! You've got nothing to worry about with your mum and da." Holding him out at arm's length, she ruffled his hair they way she'd done from the time he was tiny. "My God, but you are Isobel's boy!"_

 **oOo**

Fiona arranges it so that when the bill arrives during dinner in London, the waiter hands Reginald the notification of Matthew's scholarship. The table erupts in applause and gasps of astonishment, and Matthew shares a conspiratorial smirk with his grandmother.

Just as the excitement dies down, he reaches for the bill and his father gives him a proud nod, shaking his hand. Across the table Isobel and Fiona gape at one another, wide-eyed.

"Mother, Gran, it's the least I can do after all you've done for me," Matthew tells them. "Happy Mother's Day."

"Lad, I've got to hand it to you," the elder Crawley says to his son. "It takes nothing short of an act of God to render a Turnbull woman speechless, and here you've managed to silence two of them!"

 **Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.³**

* * *

 **Goodbye, baby  
I hope your heart's not broken  
Don't forget me  
Yes, I was outspoken  
You were with me all the time  
I'll be with you one day¹**

* * *

She is forty-one this year. By the time Matthew comes home for the summer holidays she'll have turned forty-two. He's phoned her twice today. She missed the first one, indisposed as she was at the time, but by the time the second call comes she is settled into recovery.

"Hello, Mother," comes his voice over the line. She thinks it's grown even deeper than it was when he was home the month before last. "Happy Mother's Day! Did you get my message this morning?"

She swallows hard, willing herself not to cry, not to look down at the lifeless bundle in her arms. "Matthew! Thank you for calling, my dear boy. I'm sorry I didn't call you back this morning. I—" She falters only momentarily. He'll never catch it over the telephone line. "I had an emergency at the hospital." A few tears squeeze out of the corners of her eyes and she wipes them away hastily.

"Is everything alright now?" He knows it isn't, even if he doesn't know the half of it. In the last three years he and she have endured the losses of both his grandmother and his father, the latter having suffered a stroke three months ago, followed by a fatal heart attack two weeks later. He had obtained two weeks of bereavement leave from the headmaster, and he'd told his mother he wanted to withdraw from Eton and stay with her after that. She had dismissed the notion straightaway; he was in revision for his A-levels, on track to start at Oxford on early admission.

"Oh, son," she sighs. _Oh, son, how I wish I could tell you._ She shifts in the bed … the epidural is wearing off and she _hurts._ Oh! how she hurts. "At the hospital?" She looks at her surroundings, this room she has been in hundreds of times. _Only then I was never the patient._ She does not look down. "Yes, things have ... calmed down."

She can hear the cautious half-smile in his voice, can practically see him saying, "Glad to hear it." He pauses, his brow furrowing. She is so stoic, but she needn't be, not with him. "Mother, you know, it's alright to miss Dad. I'm not going to crumble into bits if you tell me that you do."

She smiles weakly, sadly, ironically. _There is so very much I wish I could tell you, my boy._ Swallowing once more, she fights through the tears. "I'm glad you won't, love, because I do miss him. So very much. And Matthew …" She thinks of what will happen when she is released. She cannot go home. She thinks she might _never_ go home.

"Yes, Mother?"

"How would you feel about spending the summer at Newton this year? I think I'm going to take some time and go up there. Home just isn't the same without Dad there."

"It's fine with me, Mother. I might ask some of my mates up from time to time if that's alright."

"Of course it is, love. I've got a lot of thinking to do, and it's always been easiest to get it all sorted up there in the countryside."

Matthew frowns again. "Mother, are you sure you're alright? I can come home if you need me."

"Absolutely not!" The fire inside her returns for an instant and it makes him smile. "No. You are in revision. Now, go revise! It's the first time we've not been together on Mothering Sunday and I just had a moment, but I am fine! You'll ring me once you're through your last exam, won't you?"

"Of course I will, though I'll probably call sooner than that. I've got chemistry on Thursday week and I might need to talk it through."

"I'm happy to help," she tells him, and for a moment - for just a moment - she feels almost normal. _Purposeful._ Then her uterus cramps again, or rather, the scar does. The wound that now resides where it used to be. She grits her teeth hard. Still she does not look down. "Lad, I'm afraid I've got to go," she tells him, trying for a smile. "But so do you. Listen, I'll give you a ring next weekend when I'm settled in up at Newton, alright?"

"Yes, please do. And don't be afraid to ring up Uncle Ed, will you? I know you want to handle everything on your own but he and Aunt Alice would never begrudge you the help. I love you, Mother. I worry for you."

Closing her eyes, she can almost pretend that it's just a regular telephone conversation with her exceedingly mature old soul of a son, that Reg is in the other room and the baby they'd found out they were expecting just a month before he died is still safe inside her womb.

"Well don't, love. I always manage, don't I? Your only worry should be passing your exams. Now, here's a kiss and I'll talk to you at the weekend, alright?" She blows him a kiss through the telephone line, just as she's always done. "I love you, Matthew. Bye now."

He tells her he loves her more just before he rings off, and for just an instant in the midst of the day's bloody devastation, she smiles a genuine smile. How many sixteen-year-old boys would say something like that to their mothers?

 **oOo**

Her life has effectively ended, and yet it goes on. One child is top of his class at Eton; the other lies dead in her arms. It is now that she looks down. _This is not happening,_ she thinks. Women her age, with nearly-grown children and who are going on twenty years in their profession, do not get pregnant. Certainly not when their bodies failed to sustain several pregnancies two decades prior. And husbands - most especially perfectly healthy, physically fit forty-five-year-old _physician_ husbands, do not suddenly die of conditions for which there is no familial history.

* * *

 **¹ - "Goodbye Baby," Fleetwood Mac, written by Stevie Nicks. As much of a Mac nut as I am, this song is hard for me. But it is also perfect in some instances, this being one of them.  
**

 *** - Médecins Sans Frontières is the medical/humanitarian relief organisation, founded in 1971, which has since become Doctors Without Borders.  
**

 **² - Excerpt from _Thoughts on a Grey Day,_ a poem that appeared on the 1972 Fleetwood Mac album _Bare Trees._ While I may be partial, this album is top-notch and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  
**

 **³ - I Timothy 4:12 , ESV.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: It appears I'm on a roll with this one, and I've reached another natural pause. Just a bit more backstory, this a trifle more hopeful in its tone, I think.**

 **So much inspiration herein from Dame Penelope's various performances, as well as the little bit she has shared of her own life experience.**

 **The Richobel is coming.**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

What will she _do_ now? It was a mistake to think she could work again so soon after Reginald's death, particularly as ill as she'd been with morning sickness. Perhaps if she hadn't tried to go back, the babe in her arms would still be in her womb, kicking away. The last link she would ever have to him. The very last secret they two would ever share.

The hospital chaplain stops by her room and asks her does she want any bereavement counselling. She bites the inside of her cheek in order to keep from laughing bitterly and somehow manages a polite, "I'll be just fine, thank you," that she doesn't mean. Her doctor is a friend; she asks that none of their colleagues be informed. She cannot see anyone. She will not talk about it.

She doesn't have to have the birth recorded, since it was a stillbirth before the age of viability. Nonetheless she cannot hold this daughter of hers in her arms and _not_ give her a name. She and Reg had lain in bed at night and as he stroked her abdomen they had teased one another about what they'd call the baby. She'd found herself reluctant at first to think of it as a baby, given their history, but he was so keen and so hopeful that his joy was contagious. He had wanted to name it after her if they had a girl; she had outright refused even as she called him the sweetest, dearest man alive.

She wishes her mum were here now. She'd know what to do.

"Baby girl," she whispers brokenly, "I love you. I'm sorry … so terribly sorry that I couldn't save you. I wanted nothing more than to watch you grow up. How your brother would have loved you! And I wish that I could have saved your daddy, darling. I ought to have done and I couldn't … I didn't. You should have seen how excited he was when we found out about you. I'm so sorry, baby. I love him. I love you." It's now that she breaks, alone in the dark.

She doesn't know how long she cries, but in the morning her doctor-friend comes to prise the baby from her arms - the coroner's people are here; the remains are to be cremated per her request. _How does one say goodbye when there never was a hello?_ Isobel kisses her daughter. One last kiss.

"Goodbye, my Fiona."

 **oOo**

She will come back to Manchester and to her practice for a time, after the summer becomes the fall, after she and Matthew navigate their first Christmas without Reginald. But first she takes refuge in the arms of her Aunt Mairin, in the house in the North Yorkshire village of Newton-on-Ouse that has been in the family for as far back as anyone can remember.

When the summer break is over and Matthew is in his final semester at Eton she takes a trip to Scarborough, to be near the sea. She lies in bed for days at a time, and though she has healed by now from the delivery of the baby and the hysterectomy that subsequently became necessary, she aches. She thinks her womb aches, whether it's phantom pain or simply a longing for what she has lost. For Reginald's arms around her and their unborn child in the night.

She had never thought of herself as needing a man; she still doesn't see herself that way but she was with Reg for more of her life than she was without him and he loved her, believed in her, sacrificed advancement in his own career to take on the bulk of Matthew's care while she completed her residency. Side by side they had struggled through the early years of running their own OB practice while simultaneously raising a son and maintaining a marriage. They had just begun to get to the good bit, she thinks. To be able to stand back a bit and watch their practice run without either of their hands in it all of the time. To watch their lad command the field as number 3 prop. To take the occasional weekend away to the seaside, just the two of them.

She thinks she will never _not_ be in love with him and his smiling blue eyes, his shampoo-advert wavy blond hair and devilish grin and his heart for the ones forgotten. Thoughts race through her mind in the endless expanses of dark, lonely nighttime. Crazy thoughts, like _I'm forty-two and I'll never make love again,_ and, regarding the loss of her pregnancy and her uterus within hours of each other, _I'm hardly a woman anymore._

She releases Fiona's ashes on a cliffside overlooking the South Bay Beach, and she visits that spot every day. Autumn is fading fast now, and the wind that blows in off the sea nips viciously at her skin and freezes her tears in their tracks. Mairin comes to bring her home to Newton - Christmas is on its way and Matthew is finishing at Eton.

"I can't, Mairin," she whispers when her aunt chides her for having lost three stone and not taking care of herself. "I just _can't._ What have I got left to live for now?"

"Isobel Fiona, you most certainly _can,_ and you WILL! Your son is sixteen years old and still very much in need of his mother. Don't you go and make an orphan of him!" Isobel sees shades of her mother in the fury of her eldest sister.

 **oOo**

Mairin takes her niece back to the Newton house and keeps her under constant surveillance, making Isobel eat and sleep and shower. She takes her days-long silences and sudden fits of rage in stride, particularly gratified to see the latter as it signifies the fight has not gone out of Isobel yet. And gradually Isobel forsakes the silence and begins to talk, usually at night, spilling the contents of her shattered heart as she weeps in her aunt's loving arms.

The two of them begin to venture out together in short bursts. Coffee in the village one day is followed by shopping in York at the next weekend. They put up a Christmas tree while sharing a bottle of wine and collapse into gales of laughter in the floor when between the two of them they can't manage to secure the trunk of the bloody tree in its stand.

By the time Matthew arrives for the holidays she has gained back a stone and every so often her smile reaches her eyes. The first Christmas without Reg is somber, but it's not altogether sorrowful. The nights are still hard, but Mairin reminds Isobel of the fact that her mother went on to live a full life after the death of her father and assures the younger woman that she will do the same.

 **You make me feel I just can't carry on  
But I know I won't always be that way  
**' **Cos my heart will rise up with the morning sun  
And the hurt I feel will simply melt away** *****

* * *

After the arrival of the new year, Mairin makes Isobel start to think about returning to Manchester, to work.

"I can't live in that house again. Not without him. We built our entire life together under that roof," Isobel says. So Mairin does the legwork, clearing out the house and listing it with the estate agent. With the proceeds from the sale Isobel pays up Matthew's next two years at Oxford and buys a two-bedroom flat so he'll have a home to come to at term breaks.

She kisses goodbye to Newton just as spring is coming on. Mairin stays with her in Manchester through the first anniversary of Reg's death and baby Fiona's homegoing. Once Isobel has a couple of weeks back in the surgery under her belt, Mairin returns to Yorkshire.

It is, by turns, both good to be back in the service of those who need her and exhausting running a practice on her own. She manages a year, _two_ , and then the funds begin to run short, as do her time and her stamina. She accompanies Matthew to London when he goes in search of a summer clerkship in a barrister's office and while they are in town she chances a meeting with the head of obstetrics at St. Mary's Hospital. Apparently her reputation precedes her, and the doctor is looking to add a deputy head in preparation for his retirement a few years hence.

She takes a holiday to Newton with Matthew and together the two of them in concert with Mairin conclude that she'd be a fool to turn down the offer. Upon her return to Manchester she sells the practice to Ed, makes a profit on the sale of her flat and uses the combined proceeds to secure a small place for herself and Matthew in Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill.

 **When I hear that robin sing  
Well I know it's coming on spring  
And we're starting a new life** ******

* * *

 *** - Fleetwood Mac, "Why," written and sung by my girl Christine McVie. Appears on the album _Mystery to Me,_ released 1973. Incredible track, this.  
**

 **** - Van Morrison, "Starting a New Life." Thematically perfect for Isobel, I think.  
**

 **Just as an aside I've recently discovered, in my quest to understand and properly characterise a young, widowed Isobel, the author/blogger/mum Nora McInerney Purmort. She articulates love and loss from the perspective of a young woman in a way that merges heartbreak, hope and the quest to move forward. And her Instagram (noraborealis) is adorable.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: The reviews have been a true delight, friends. I am humbled by your kindness and support. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

She is forty-seven when she meets Richard Clarkson. At the time he has a private practice as a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and she is just getting her sea legs as Deputy Chief of Obstetrics at St. Mary's Hospital, working privately on the side. The patients she sees are already tough cases; it is to him that the hardest of the hard are referred. She rings him to consult on a patient admitted in hypertensive crisis who has a history of chronic hypertension. She could handle the case on her own, but the woman has been Clarkson's patient throughout her three prior pregnancies and is right at 28 weeks. She'd like an insider's opinion, and additionally she knows that, as the new girl in town, there is value in building relationships with fellow physicians.

After he concludes that the best course of action is to administer magnesium sulfate for the prevention of eclampsia and betamethasone to aid in maturing the baby's lungs, Isobel invites him to her office.

"Dr. Clarkson, I wanted to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to consult this afternoon. I must admit I'm also glad of the opportunity to meet you in person at last. I feel as if I already know you well by reputation." She smiles as she extends her hand to him.

He nods, giving a small smile as he shakes her hand. "Likewise, Dr. Crawley. I think I've heard all of Manchester sing your praises." She blushes at this … and it mortifies her! She is not a new recruit, wet behind the ears. She has long since learnt how to receive a compliment with grace, so just exactly why can't she seem to do so now? Surely it has nothing to do with Clarkson's sparkling blue eyes. _Wait, what?_ What on earth is she doing noticing his eyes?

 _He is waiting for your response, you fool._ "Oh, I don't know about all that,' she manages. "But thank you."

He smiles again, and she figures it out. His eyes are the same shade of blue, with the same crystalline clarity, as Reginald's. _That's all it is,_ she tells herself. _Just a likeness._

"If you don't mind my asking, what made you leave Manchester?" he asks.

' _If you don't mind my asking.' So it's more than just his eyes._ His gentility is reminiscent of Reg's as well. And she doesn't. Mind his asking, that is. But she has so seldom said the words that she chokes on them, just a little.

"Oh, ehrm …" She swallows hard. "My husband died a few years back and it proved to be too much for one person, running the practice alone." She looks down at her desk for a moment and he covers his mouth with his hand.

"That question was highly impertinent, Dr. Crawley. Please excuse my insensitivity." He appears utterly mollified by his behaviour, and she thinks she sees a flash of something like empathy in his eyes. _Interesting._

She holds up a hand in a gesture that says, ' _Let's not get carried away.'_ "No apology necessary," she tells him. "There's no possible way you could have known. It's me who should apologise for getting choked up. Only I haven't had much occasion to say those words aloud, really." _My husband died._ _ **My. Husband. Died.**_ _Doesn't feel any more real today than it did six years ago._ She blinks thoughtfully, unaware that he's watching her eyes. "Anyway, I sold the practice to my brother. My son is doing a clerkship here in town for the summer, and between that and my having been offered the position here, it seemed like the time to make a fresh start." _Why am I sharing all of this with him?_

"Medicine is in your family, then," he deduces. _Because he's easy to talk to, that's why._ He is unassuming and genuinely interested.

She smiles, brightly this time. "Oh, yes. My father was a GP, and my brother and I spent more time in his surgery than we did at home I think. We knew how to recognise bronchitis before we could write our own names." She chuckles at this and so does he. "My son, however … he told us from the time he was ten that he was going to read law."

"How old is your son?"

"He's twenty-two. He studies at Oxford."

"You must be very proud. Is he your only child?"

 _Oh, God. How do I do this?_ Blinking, she manages, "Yes, he's my only, is Matthew. And he does do me proud." _Change the subject._ "What about you, doctor? Do you have any children?"

She thinks he looks surprised that she's taken an interest. "Me? No, no. I've never been married."

She nods in understanding. "Ah, wedded to the job perhaps?" He affirms her assessment with a nod of his own. "I think I'd have been the same, had Reginald and I not met when we were children. It isn't an easy life for an outsider to adapt to, that's for certain."

"No, it isn't. I can't imagine how you must have done it; two physicians, raising a child. You have my utmost respect."

She feels her cheeks flush again, but more disarming to her than her schoolgirl reaction is the sincerity of his words. She doesn't know why, but she gets the sense that words don't come cheaply to him. She hasn't felt a connection like this to any human being since Reg died. _Here,_ she thinks, though she can't fully explain how she knows it, _is a_ _ **friend.**_

"Well, that's very kind of you, but we could never have done it without my mother. She lived in the house next door to ours, and she would always keep Matthew for us when we couldn't leave the hospital. Do you come from a medical family?"

"My father was a surgeon. I liked what you said about spending more of your childhood in the surgery than at home. That was me."

This makes her smile. "Any brothers or sisters?"

"No. No, just me, and I wanted to be just like my father. Bless my mam and da; they never pushed it. They always encouraged me to find my own way, and I did do. I did. It just happened to be the case that my way _was_ their way."

"That's quite a testament to your upbringing, then. It couldn't have been an easy thing for you, leaving Scotland. Or your parents, for that matter. The only son going so far away." Then she realises she's made a sizable assumption. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have … I jumped to conclusions there, based upon your accent and the fact that I know you studied in Edinburgh."

He grins, and it's then that she notices there's a hint of something devilish in it, in the twinkling of his eyes. "Correct ones," he tells her, "and yes, it was difficult leaving home. But my father made it clear that if I set foot on Scottish soil again without bringing news of either a fellowship or a wife, he'd have my hide! Which is Scots for 'it'll get easier, lad; tough it out.'"

She laughs heartily. "Oh yes, I'm well-versed. My mother's family are Scots."

"Really? Where from?" _Am I really that interesting?_ she wonders. _Or is he one of the last truly kind souls in the world?_

"Glasgow," she answers. "Your father sounds as if he's of the same mindset as my Aunt Mairin … gentle as a lamb beneath that iron exterior. I've been accused of being that way myself."

"Truly?" he asks, cocking an eyebrow in a manner that does not go unnoticed. "Now that I find hard to believe. I think we're doing quite well here …" He looks down at himself. "I'm not missing any limbs yet."

She lets go a laugh that reminds her of a woman she has not been for more than half a decade now. There is a strange sensation of lightness that settles about her shoulders, as if a load has been suddenly lifted off of them. "Oh, Dr. Clarkson," she sighs, attempting to gather her wits about her, "You must forgive me my lack of professionalism. Only it's a relief to be able to talk without having to explain oneself, isn't it?" She thinks that he shares the sentiment. She hopes she hasn't just made a terrible misstep.

"A relief, and a privilege," he replies.

 **oOo**

Matthew meets his mother from work in the hospital cafeteria, and straightaway he notices there's a change in her affect. She spots him from halfway across the room and the smile she gives him lights up her face. He chats enthusiastically about the connections he's making at the office of the barrister he's clerking for and then she tells him how she's settling in, making connections of her own with key members of the medical community.

He listens with interest, but what truly captivates him is the life in her eyes; the animation with which she speaks. He hasn't seen her like this since before his father died. It is the first time he thinks she really might be all right again.

 _Just who is it she's met?_ he wonders.

* * *

 **How is it you seem to know what I tried not to show?**

 **This must be rare  
** ' **Cause nothing else can compare  
Not that I'm aware of***

* * *

 *** - From "Traveling," by Tennis, whose music I was recently introduced to by a lovely friend. Appears on the album _Young & Old._  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I'm loving your feedback on this fic, friends. This chapter is a labour of love.**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

It isn't so much that Isobel adapts to life in London as that her work consumes her. And it's a phenomenon she embraces with open arms. Two years into her tenure at St. Mary's she becomes Chief of Obstetrics with the retirement of the department chair. With a capable staff under her command and administrators backing her, she has all the infrastructure that she'd been lacking flying solo back in Manchester. She swiftly gains a reputation for running her department in a manner efficient and fair, almost military in its precision. Professionally, she is in the prime of her life.

Matthew continues to make her a proud mum. After successfully completing his Legal Practice Course and his recognised training he is offered a position in a firm specialising in property law. As such he makes the acquaintance of two rising stars of the London real property market; namely, one Lavinia Swire and one Mary Crawley. Miss Swire is delicate, ginger-haired and sprightly. Miss Crawley is raven-haired, with dark eyes and a sharp tongue. The surname shared between she and Matthew is more than a coincidence; Mary's father, Robert Crawley, is Matthew's third cousin once removed. When Matthew makes mention of this to his mother, she tells him that she remembers his father having a vague recollection of playing with "the Northern cousins," so called because of their estate near Ripon in Yorkshire. Mary's father may not formally use his title of Earl of Grantham, but he has certainly led the life of an aristocrat and, together with his American wife, has raised their three daughters accordingly. Isobel rolls her eyes at all of this; if Reg had been one of "those Crawleys" neither she nor her parents would have given him the time of day.

Both misses Swire and Crawley take an interest in Matthew, and why wouldn't they? He is young, handsome, ambitious and single. Not for the first time, Isobel wishes Reg were still here to guide their son. Everyone wants to fall in love and she understands that, but although he may tower over her now, and make his own money and have his own flat with two mates from Oxford who also work in town, in Isobel's heart Matthew is her baby. Neither of these girls is anything like the picture she'd held in her mind's eye of the sort of young woman worthy of him. She wonders whether such a girl exists. She strongly doubts it.

 **oOo**

In those first couple of years she runs into Richard Clarkson sporadically. Her position becomes increasingly administrative in nature following her promotion, and for a while she doesn't see him at all.

Then one day she is informed that the Chief of Neonatology will be bringing the doctor he has hired to head the department upon his retirement by her office to meet her. With a quarterly budget meeting looming, it's time she can't really afford to take away from her duties, and when her assistant rings to inform her of their arrival she groans internally. _This can't be over fast enough,_ she thinks even as she runs a brush through her hair and affixes a welcoming smile to her face.

When she opens the door to her office, her jaw nearly drops open. Standing there with Dr. Green is none other than Richard Clarkson himself. Her smile becomes a real one when she sees him, all the reluctance she had felt about this meeting vanishing in an instant _._

He grins when he sees the sheer surprise on her face. "I wanted to deliver the news personally, Dr. Crawley," he tells her. "I'm very much looking forward to working together."

When the shock wears off, she has questions. "When did you decide to make the move to neonatology?" Again as before they sit on opposite sides of her desk, Dr. Green having taken his leave of the pair once he'd realised they already knew one another.

"It was my subspecialty, and I've stayed in it as a researcher all these years," he replies. "Much like yourself I was approached with an offer I couldn't well refuse."

"I can't believe I didn't know," she says. "Last I'd heard there was a pool of about a half dozen candidates. But you said you were made an offer …" Her brow furrows as she tries to work it out. He watches her with intrigue.

He nods. "I was the one who kept them waiting. I had a full roster of patients I couldn't just leave high and dry. I practice with one other doctor so the bulk of the cases will go to him, but we had to secure a junior and another nurse to keep things running smoothly in the short term," he explains, and his star rises a little higher in her mind when she listens to the deliberation with which he undertook this career move.

"I didn't hear you make mention of selling the practice," she observes. "Does this mean you'll be keeping your hand in maternal-fetal medicine after all?"

"Yes; as time permits," he answers. "Likely with a high rate of crossover between the two." His eyes take on a sudden solemn grey as he adds, "Unfortunately."

"Mmm," she agrees. It would be wonderful if her intervention was enough to keep expectant mothers from becoming his MFM patients, and even better still if then those women's babies were born at term and with no need for NICU involvement. Often, the act of either she or he stepping in for a time along the way is enough to break the chain. But not often enough. "Nonetheless, if I've got to turn patients over at any point I'm pleased that I'll be giving them over into your capable hands."

 **oOo**

They see one another most days, though usually there isn't the time to stop and chat. Most often their interactions take place in theatre, when he is either present from the outset or signs of fetal distress emerge along the way and she makes an emergency page.

Obstetrics is her specialty; neonatology is his and yet they develop a kind of communication between them, mostly wordless in nature, by which one reassures or checks the decisions of the other. She comes to be enthralled by the sight of him with the tiniest, most fragile babies in his arms; the way he intervenes emergently yet keeps his touch gentle, his manner unhurried, his voice soft and reassuring as he talks to the little ones.

The thought occurs to her one evening while sat at her desk replaying the day's events in her mind, that it's a shame he never had children. _He would make an outstanding father._

* * *

 **Every day she takes a morning bath, she wets her hair  
Wraps a towel round her as she's heading for the bedroom chair  
It's just another day**

 **Slippin' into stockings**  
 **Steppin' into shoes**  
 **Dippin' in the pocket of her raincoat**  
 **It's just another day***

* * *

Isobel Crawley does not so much _live_ in London as work there. She likes her flat well enough, but now that Matthew has a place of his own she avoids spending any length of time there. Surely it was inevitable that one day he would leave home, but she'd always envisioned her empty-nest years would be a kind of second honeymoon for herself and Reg. Perhaps they'd have travelled, joining Doctors Without Borders now that its base of operations had expanded beyond France. There might have been day trips to visit estates or weekends in Wales. Or her favourite … lazy Saturday mornings making love.

She'll never know now, and so she spends the bulk of her time at the hospital. The flat is just that: four walls and a roof. Without her family, it is not a home, and being there only serves as a bitter reminder of solitude that was not of her choosing. The physicians' lounge, with its narrow cots outfitted with thin mattresses and scratchy blankets, is far preferable to her own bed, which feels too big and too empty despite its only being a double. And her office boasts a sofa that actually sleeps quite nicely. In the garment bag on the back of her office door hangs a spare blouse and trousers; another is kept in her car. She goes to the flat an evening or two each week to check it's alright and to do laundry and to restock the refrigerator in the event that Matthew and his friends come by. Sleep, as a general rule, eludes her most nights; those that she spends at home are worse by far.

She's kept a bottle of the cologne that Reg wore. She sleeps in his t-shirts. A body pillow fills the empty space in the bed beside her. She sprays it with the cologne, and sometimes - if she gives the pillow time to absorb her body heat, and if she screws her eyes tightly shut and buries her face in it - she can almost believe that her head is tucked into the warm crook of his neck.

Once in awhile that will buy her an hour or two of sleep and invariably, enveloped in his scent she will dream of waking in the early hours to the feel of his body surrounding hers, his erection prodding her bottom. She will push back against him - she never could resist being awakened by his wanting her - until he rolls her beneath him and presses himself against her, into her, making them one.

"I love you," she'll whisper, again and again as their souls merge.

She always awakens with a jolt, drenched in cold sweat and aching between her legs. And alone.

Angrily she throws off the covers and stalks to the bathroom to start the shower, leaving the hot water tap closed. If there's anything at all about this place that she would say she loved, it would have to be her bathroom, with its deep, freestanding tub and separate spa shower. Even so, as she leans against the tile wall with jets of frigid water from every direction carrying her tears away, she can't help but feel as if she's being mocked. It ought to be her husband's arms surrounding her, not cold, stone walls. It should be his lips kissing away her tears. Instead she feels dirty; guilty for wanting him, for missing the way he made love to her. The thought repulses her. _Selfish bitch! He's been dead for over a decade and_ _ **this**_ _is how you honour his memory?_ But whether she is angry or guilty or tearful or submerged well over her head in work, the end result is the same every time.

She is still alone. She will always be alone.

Afterwards, wrapped in her dressing gown and vainly nursing a cup of camomile tea, she curls into the corner of the couch in the lounge, flipping channels on the television. Why she subscribes to so many when she can't remember the last time she watched the bloody thing is beyond her. _Matthew,_ she concludes. She keeps them for him, in the event that he's there and wanting to watch. _Matthew._ She hasn't spoken to him in a couple of days. He'd been mired in work preparing contracts for the construction of a new block of flats near Gatwick. She thinks she'll ring him tomorrow and ask him to supper, him and whichever of the two young ladies he's seeing as of this week. Of course, that would mean having to be at home, and aren't the present circumstances case in point as to why perhaps that's not the best plan? She sighs deeply as a headache announces its arrival. Mental gymnastics of this nature are not wisely undertaken on so little sleep _._

She switches to coffee (never mind the fact that it's just gone two) and between the caffeine and two aspirin manages to hold most of the headache off. She tries to watch Jamie Oliver for a while, but his cheery demeanor proves more than she can do, so she lands on _Air Crash Investigation_ and dozes fitfully while investigators work to solve the mystery of why multi-million-dollar jets crash.

 **oOo**

At four o'clock she gives up the fight. She dresses, preens, covers the dark circles as best she can, all while nursing coffee number two. She arrives at the hospital just before five, ignoring the strange looks from the overnight security guards, and holes up in her office. As she falls into the rhythm of answering emails and authorising prescription refills, the radio playing softly in the background, she begins to put the terror of night behind her.

* * *

 **And he says,  
** ' **What do you love to do?  
Outside your world,  
Who spends time with you?  
Whom do you love when you're not working,  
Sweet girl?'****

* * *

A knock sounds softly at her door at 5:30 and she looks up to see Dr. Clarkson standing in the doorway.

"Good morning," he says. "You're here awfully early."

Turning her chair toward him, she smiles softly. "The same could be said of you. Have you got an early meeting?"

He shakes his head. "Didn't sleep well, for reasons unknown. After a while I got tired of lying there and reckoned I'd get an early start. How about you?"

"I never sleep," she tells him, feeling a rush of exhilaration at this letting down of her guard, however minuscule. "Not well, anyway. I'm afraid you've caught me red-handed, actually."

He gives an inquisitive tilt of his head.

"If you haven't got to be anywhere, would you like to come in?" she asks. "I'd be glad of the company."

"If you're sure it's no trouble," he says, taking the chair opposite hers. Then, "Have you eaten?"

She blushes - _blushes! -_ and laughs a bit nervously. "I'm afraid that's something else I don't … um … do as regularly as I should."

He produces a brown bag from a local bakery and sets it on the desk between them. "I'll share," he says simply, his voice devoid of judgment, eyes full of compassion.

"Oh. Ah … thank you," she manages.

"So … you don't sleep," he says as she reaches for a croissant.

"No, I …" she begins, then hesitates. _Remember how good it felt to come clean?_ She continues, "I haven't done, not really … um … since the death of my husband. Most nights I work until midnight, and all but about two nights a week I sleep here."

" _Here?"_ he echoes. Again, she senses no judgment, only a bid for clarification.

"Here," she repeats, gesturing with her chin toward the couch. "Sometimes in the physician's lounge."

"Cor, those cots," he remarks, wrinkling his nose disgustedly.

She giggles. "Exactly. Hence the couch. Can you keep a secret?"

"My lips are sealed," he replies, and though the lips in question form a smile there is a solemnity in his eyes that disarms her.

"I pay the cleaning crew _not_ to clean my office," she nearly whispers, "since they would always arrive to do it at about two a.m. when I'd just nodded off. I clean it myself."

"You don't!" he challenges, his eyes twinkling. She senses in him a soft spot for the presence of a mischievous streak in others.

"There's a hoover in the wardrobe!"

He laughs, and so does she. It feels **so** good to laugh - and at herself, no less.

"So do you find it helps you, this working round the clock?" he asks.

The question knocks the wind out of her. No one has ever asked her that. She has never asked it of herself. _Well, old girl? Is it helpful? Is it necessary?_

She pauses for an unnaturally long amount of time, so that she becomes aware of him watching her. She feels herself blush again. "I'm sorry," she tells him, "only it's been a very long time since anyone's taken an interest in the reasons why I do things." Pausing again, she tries to work out an honest answer to his question that doesn't give away too much, finally settling on, "I find it's best to stay busy."

It doesn't really answer his enquiry, but how exactly does one explain the gnawing emptiness in her heart that, given the opportunity, would consume her from the inside out?

He has the grace to accept her partial evasion and changes his tack a bit. "When you do find time to break away from here, what do you like to do?"

She looks at him blankly. His questions, while perfectly innocent, burn like a red-hot poker in her diaphragm. Scanning the catalogue of her mind, she comes up empty. The realisation chokes her.

He scrambles for a glass of water and hands it to her. "Are you alright?" he asks.

When she can, she nods. After she recovers, she tells him, "Your questions wouldn't seem particularly probing to anyone else, but they've brought me to a rather startling conclusion about myself: I haven't got a life, Dr. Clarkson!"

* * *

 *** From "Another Day" by Paul McCartney. I have heard this song as being "about Isobel" for a very long time now.**

 **** From "Sweet Girl" by Fleetwood Mac. The inclusion of this one gives me chills, if I'm honest, as I've used "sweet girl" as a pet name of Richard's for Isobel for ages now. And Mac fan though I am, it had nothing to do with the song. But perfect correlation is perfect, I think.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: The reviews have been amazing. Thank you all so very, very much for the love you continue to show.**

 **This chapter was surprisingly hard to write. I find it almost insurmountably challenging to write from a vantage point where they aren't 1701% married. This one is necessary; the next should (I hope) contain a bit more forward motion.**

 **xx,**  
 **~ejb~**

* * *

" _So do you find it helps you, this working round the clock?" he asks._

 _The question knocks the wind out of her. No one has ever asked her that. She has never asked it of herself._ Well, old girl? Is it helpful? Is it necessary?

 _She pauses for an unnaturally long amount of time, so that she becomes aware of him watching her. She feels herself blush again. "I'm sorry," she tells him, "only it's been a very long time since anyone's taken an interest in the reasons why I do things." Pausing again, she tries to work out an honest answer to his question that doesn't give away too much, finally settling on, "I find it's best to stay busy."_

 _It doesn't really answer his enquiry, but how exactly does one explain the gnawing emptiness in her heart that, given the opportunity, would consume her from the inside out?_

 _He has the grace to accept her partial evasion and changes his tack a bit. "When you do find time to break away from here, what do you like to do?"_

 _She looks at him blankly. His questions, while perfectly innocent, burn like a red-hot poker in her diaphragm. Scanning the catalogue of her mind, she comes up empty. The realisation chokes her._

 _He scrambles for a glass of water and hands it to her. "Are you alright?" he asks._

 _When she can, she nods. After she recovers, she tells him, "Your questions wouldn't seem particularly probing to anyone else, but they've brought me to a rather startling conclusion about myself: I don't have a life, Dr. Clarkson!"_

* * *

Looking back, she will recognise this as the moment she ceased wearing her widow's grief like a favourite jumper. It feels akin to a slap in the face that causes her to shake off the dull grey haze of mourning through which she has been floating for fifteen years. How much of her existence since Reginald's death has consisted of forward motion, and how much has simply been about stasis and protection; a kind of protracted hibernation? She finds herself suddenly standing with two feet planted firmly on the ground, in a present in which she is ill-equipped to exist. It is, by turns, both exhilarating and terrifying, this having been abruptly recalled to life in a world that has moved on whilst she was standing still; frozen.

She doesn't know how he senses her loss of equilibrium, but just when she feels the bottom starting to fall out he steps in; her safety net. Confident that she will be in her office after her admission that she rarely leaves it, he pops in one evening while working late. She is sat at her desk flipping through a file folder when his knock sounds, and she looks up at him over the rims of her reading specs.

"Hi," she says brightly, gracing him with a soft smile. She doesn't try to hide the tiredness in her eyes. "What can I do for you?"

Reading this as an invitation to enter, he approaches her desk. "I need a signature, if it's not too much trouble. For the patient who required the BPP*"

"Of course. No trouble at all." She holds out her hand to accept the file from him and their eyes meet.

"Still not sleeping well?" he asks gently.

She sighs. "It's worse lately. I wonder whether I've finally gone over."

He smiles, and not for the first time she sees empathy in his eyes. He feels for her, surely. He's a physician, trained in bedside manner. But it goes beyond that. He hasn't said so - he's told her very little at all about himself, really - but she recognises in his expression the look of someone who has been there.

"I'm quite confident you haven't done," he tells her.

Before she has time to think twice, she hears herself asking, "Are you going to be here awhile?"

Tilting his head inquisitively, he reads the meaning behind her words. "I could do. I've got a draft of a journal article to finish. It isn't due until next week, but if I count on finishing at home I know I'll never make it."

"No?" she asks, her interest piqued.

"I've a terrible habit of nodding off in front of the telly with the laptop open."

She giggles. "Have you? Oh, I envy you that. Do you think you can work in here? The desk is yours if you want it; I can sit on the couch. Or the other way round. Whichever you prefer." _Shut up, fool woman! What has come over you?_

He flashes an amused smile. "The indirect approach doesn't flatter you, Dr. Crawley. You must remember that I've observed you in action … many times. Are you asking for my company?"

Her cheeks feel hot suddenly, and she flushes several shades of red. "I … might be," she says quietly.

"Then you may ask me." _I see who you are,_ his eyes tell her. _Don't try to hide it._

And there it is: the gauntlet, thrown down. She has never been one to back down when provoked. She draws a breath, her heart pounding, and meets his eyes with fire in her own. "Would you bring whatever it is you're working on into my office and finish it here?"

She exhales. The world does not tilt violently on its axis. He does not laugh in her face or storm away in anger. Observing these things, she dares an admission: "Despite the fact that I've become abnormally brilliant at being alone, Dr. Clarkson, the truth is that I don't enjoy it."

He nods in acknowledgment, in understanding. In acceptance. "I'll just go get my laptop then," he says simply. She watches as he turns to go to his office and sways on her feet a little, feeling faint. In the doorway he turns round to address her again. "And I do believe it's time we abandon the formalities. Call me Richard."

"Isobel," she tries to say, but in her astonishment her voice gives out and it comes as a whisper.

 **oOo**

And just like that, it becomes a _thing_ between them; most days, either early in the morning or late, after all the other staff have long since gone home, one will simply appear in the other's office, bringing along whatever work they've got. Sometimes they chat, but often they're quiet, looking up every so often to smile at one another or, if making a visit to the caff, to enquire whether the other would like anything. When she finds out about his fondness for maple and bacon scones, she brings him a batch, home baked. And upon learning that daffodils are her favourite flowers, he sends her two bouquets of them: one to her office and one to her flat. On nights they don't hole up together after hours, he phones her at home before turning in. Initially it has to do with his concern for her well-being, but he finds that the routine they've established of unburdening themselves of the day's events is something he needs as much as she does.

In jest one day he tells her that he doubts whether she exists outside of work. Taking it as a challenge, she dares him to meet her at a curry house halfway between the hospital and her flat. She laughs at the expression on his face when she meets him at the door, telling him that he looks like Santa Claus in the M&M's advert ("They _do_ exist!"). He drinks Glenmorangie with dinner and she decides she likes this side of him, relaxed and handsome in jeans and a velour blazer. He is simply easy to be around, an active listener with a ready smile.

She learns of his life outside of work. He insists that his is a rather boring existence, but over dinner he tells her of building furniture, of trout fishing in Oxfordshire and of having seen Van Morrison and The Chieftains play a one-off show in Liverpool. It all sounds fascinating to her, and she finds herself wanting to do something more than live at the hospital and struggle to sleep at night, so that she'll have interesting stories to tell him.

He asks after Matthew and she reveals to him things she hadn't even realised she thought. Both Lavinia and Mary are still in her son's orbit, and from her vantage point he appears to be in love with the latter while the former is in love with _him._

"And which of them do you prefer?" he asks her.

"My son is thirty years old, Richard. I'm not supposed to have an opinion in these matters." That's the diplomatic answer.

He grins. "That is the biggest lie I've ever heard, Isobel Crawley! Since when has there ever been a subject about which you have no opinion? Come on, eh? It's just you and I here; you haven't got to be nice."

She laughs again. "Oh, thanks for that! Some friend you are," she tells him, but she's eating it up. He's got her number alright. And yet he still seems to seek out her company. _Interesting._ So she tells him of her belief that neither girl is right for Matthew. Lavinia is as sweet as candy floss, but that's just it: she's _too_ sweet. She doesn't stand up to Matthew. Mary, on the other hand, poses nothing but a challenge. She loves no one so much as herself, and she has no shortage of eligible bachelors trailing after her. Among them is none other than Richard Carlisle, deputy opinion editor for the _Guardian._

"It truly doesn't matter to me whether or not my son marries," she says, "only that if he does so, it's done out of a deep, mutual love, and in the current landscape there is no mutuality. Either he's going to break Lavinia's heart, or Mary will break his."

"And you wonder why I never had children," he quips.

"Did you ever want them?" she asks. It's a rather personal question, and she worries for a moment that perhaps she's stepped in it.

"I did, actually," he answers, appearing unfazed. "Came rather close even."

She is intrigued. "Did you?"

Knocking back the dregs of his scotch, he nods. "I was engaged once, just out of med school." He rolls his eyes. She didn't know he did that at anyone but her! She hides her smirk behind her serviette. "Dreadful timing," he explains. "It … ehrm … didn't go forward. I'd have loved to have married young and had it stick like you did. That was always the plan." His tone is self-deprecating, as if he recognises the folly of his thinking.

"Ah, yes, _'the plan,'_ " she replies. " _The plan_ called for Reginald and I to be handing our practice over right about now, retiring to Yorkshire and finally having the time to enjoy one another's company for the first time since we were teenagers. It's a lovely thing to marry the right one … until suddenly you're the only one left." Shaking her head, she checks herself. "Sorry. Didn't mean to go maudlin on you."

"No, please, don't apologise," he assures her. "We've known each other for a long time now; we ought to be able to be forthright with one another."

"Are you sure? Despite my tendency to run off at the mouth …" she pauses. Now she's the one poking fun at herself. "... The last thing I want is to put you in an awkward position by oversharing."

"You can put that out of your mind. You haven't got it in you," he tells her matter-of-factly.

"No?"

"Not at all," he insists. "You are more honest than anyone else I know. At times it drives me mad, but it makes you a top-notch clinician and a brilliant administrator. Candour is one thing; it makes you relatable. Vulgarity is another. You embody the former, and you're completely incapable of the latter."

She sits in stunned silence for a moment. She has the good graces to keep her mouth from falling open, but only _just._ She catches him watching her. _Say something, you fool!_ "I'm … I'm sorry," she stammers, "it's just … accurate. You have an uncanny ability to read people. Me, anyway." Not for the first time she thinks, _And yet you're still here._

 **oOo**

Meeting outside the hospital begins to occur with greater frequency. They've soon got a regular table at the curry house, and one at a pub in his neighbourhood as well. He meets Matthew, with whom he has an instant camaraderie, and their party of two becomes three as often as not. By turns he makes the acquaintance of both Lavinia and Mary, so that it comes as no surprise to him when Isobel announces that Mary is engaged to Richard Carlisle, and even less of one when Matthew proposes to Lavinia.

Facing the knowledge that her son will soon be married whether she likes it or not, Isobel decides it's high time she learns to be comfortable in her own skin. Fifteen years is a hell of a long time to go without knowing oneself, and while the process of becoming reacquainted is a daunting one, she cannot honestly say it's entirely unwelcome.

In her youth she had been an accomplished pianist, having considered at one point pursuing a degree in music performance. In the end her need to feel useful and to positively impact the lives of others had won her over to the study of medicine, but she had continued, for a time, to play recreationally.

 _Why did I ever stop?_ she wonders now. Then she recalls the whirlwind years of balancing residency, young motherhood and marriage. New phases of life give rise to new passions, often requiring others to be laid aside for a time. Deciding that it's high time to revisit one of her great loves, she purchases a small Essex Continental. It's nothing compared to the grandeur of the Steinway up at the Newton house, but it's a bold step on her part; a declaration that _Isobel Crawley lives._

She redecorates the flat, or rather, decorates it, period, because it strikes her as preposterous to have paid good money for a property in Notting Hill and then to have done absolutely nothing with it. The fact that the previous owners had left behind the majority of their furnishings doesn't mean she's obliged to keep using them. She paints out the space in subtle, airy hues and replaces the hodgepodge of carpeting and parquet with wide-plank oak hardwood and spends her weekends scouring the city for fine linen and perfectly-proportioned furniture. She still doesn't see herself staying here for the long term, but with nothing enticing her to retire she figures she's got a good ten more years in the city, and she may as well enjoy the space for the duration.

Besides consuming all of her free time, the renovations prompt yet another significant revelation. For all of her efforts she cannot pin down a suitable sofa. Since it's where she expects to sleep the majority of the time (unable as she is to face up to sleeping in a bed alone), it's got to be a sectional of some variety, but most of those are of mammoth proportions, far too large for her modest lounge.

As to the bed itself, it's the one item upon which she decides not to decide. The one she already has may not suit her exactly, but swathed in beautiful new linens it will surely suffice for the time being. This is the sort of decision she'd prefer to make alongside someone else, she realises, and on the heels of that thought comes yet another: _I don't want to sleep alone forever._

 **oOo**

While they see one another in theatre every day and talk on the phone a couple of times a week, she hasn't seen as much of Richard socially since beginning the renovations, and he teases her about it one morning over breakfast in his office.

"Well, hello there, stranger," he says as she sets a cup of coffee and a scone in front of him. "I was beginning to think you'd skipped town!"

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and chuckles as she sits down across from him. "Not at all; it's just that changing up the flat has taken on a life of its own. I knew it would be a slog, but I had no idea to what extent,"

"How's it coming along?" he asks with interest.

She fills him in on all of her plans, her progress and pitfalls and as he listens, she can't help noticing how pleased he looks. This surprises her, but not as much as when he tells her, "I think it's brilliant. If you're paying for a place you ought to at least be comfortable in it, even if it isn't where you see yourself long-term. And I can tell it's right for you because you've smiled more telling me about it than you've done in all the time we've known each other."

"Have I done?" She looks disbelievingly at him.

"Mmm," he nods. "You've never met a challenge you didn't love. Now, as to the sofa, I've a few ideas of places you might try."

"Oh, good," she says. She'd forgotten, in the chaos of choosing rugs and paint colours and tile, that he builds furniture in his off-hours and might have insight into these things. "Perhaps you can point me in the direction of a coffee table as well then. I've been all over but I've yet to find anything close to the proper scale."

"Tell me what you want and I'll build it," he says simply.

"Really?" she asks, incredulous. "You would do that for me?"

"Well, it'll take me a couple of weeks, but it's the easiest way to ensure you'll get what you're looking for."

"A couple of _weeks?_ " she repeats. "I think I can just about countenance it, given that I've been looking for three _months_ now! What do you charge?"

He shakes his head. "It's nothing. We're friends; I'm happy to do it for you. Just jot down the dimensions you're looking for, and I'll sketch out some ideas. And I can meet you Saturday to look at sofas, if you're agreeable."

 _He would go with me?_ She muses about the significance of this for so long that she realises he's watching her.

"We can do it another time if you'd rather," he says, prompting her to reply.

"Oh, ah, no … No! Saturday's fine! What else would I do, besides find an excuse to come into work?" She gives a nervous laugh.

"Well I wasn't sure, you know. I haven't seen you much of late."

She can't be certain, but it almost sounds as if he's missed her. She stores this thought away, along with the little catch in her breath and the uptick in her pulse rate that it brings. Thoughts of him elicit this sort of response with increasing frequency these days, and most of the time she doesn't fight them.

 **oOo**

Saturday dawns with Isobel wide awake at 3 am. The scenario is nothing new, but the reason behind it is. _Shouldn't he see the flat first?_ That is the thought that rouses her from sleep. If he is to help her find a sofa of the proper proportions, would seeing the space not make it that bit easier to find pieces suitable? Should she send a text message and ask him? No, she decides; he'll have the sound turned on in case of a work emergency and the notification would disturb him. Because he's sleeping. Which is what she ought to be doing. Right.

There's no chance of her falling back to sleep now, so she begins to clean. Never mind the fact that she'd just had the cleaning people in on Wednesday (a luxury she allows herself since she is so seldom home); in the event that he does want to see the place it's got to be spotless. The routine of dusting, dry- and then wet-mopping, fluffing throw pillows and changing out towels kills a couple of hours. Five o'clock is still too early to ring him, so she fixes the first of what she suspects will be many cups of coffee. She owns two coffeemakers: a one-cup French press and a standard electric drip-brewer. The latter is a holdover from the days of Matthew's living with her. As she heats the kettle for the French press, another notion of the sort she forbade herself to consider for so very long occurs: _It would be nice to make coffee for two again. Two mugs, side by side on the countertop. His and hers._ There is no question in her mind as to whom _his_ would belong, either. The trouble is that she's got no idea how to do anything about it.

All she does know is that she has an obligation to do _something._

She heads back toward the bedroom to gather clothes before her shower. On her way to peruse the wardrobe, she changes her mind and opens the top drawer of the dressing table. Lifting the lid of the box that resides within, she finds the incontrovertible evidence of her vow. To anyone else it would look like a standard legal pad, but to her it is both a precious treasure and an albatross round her neck. Therein, in eight pages and two distinct hands, is contained one of the final conversations she and Reginald ever had.

She runs the tips of her fingers over the letters formed painstakingly in Reg's hand. She can feel the indentations formed by the pressure with which the pen touched the paper. _He wrote this. He was alive. He_ _ **was.**_ Because she has been on her own for so long now that it almost feels as if she dreamed him up.

The memories come upon her like a torrent: _the day their world came crashing down at her feet. Eddie on the phone to her, asking did Reg leave for work yet because he'd not arrived at the hospital. Her blood running cold as she'd leapt into her car, driving the route he would have taken. Finding his car in the car park, the motor still running, and him slumped over the steering wheel. Yanking him out of the seat with superhuman strength, his head in her lap on the cold asphalt. Finding his pulse,_ Thank God! **Thank God!** Now open your eyes, dammit! Talk to me, Reggie!

 _The heads of neurology and cardiology appearing at his bedside as she sat vigil._ "Your husband has suffered an acute ischemic stroke, Dr. Crawley." _She remembers little else that was said after that._ _Some mention of suspected a-fib, and the need for further testing once he was stable. Crawling into bed beside him once they'd taken their leave, settling herself into the crook of his left arm, his right side having been paralysed, and weeping as she laid her head on his chest._ He is forty-five years old! We walk every morning before work. We've a baby on the way and a practice to run and none of this makes any sense!

 _The ensuing days had been a haze of tests, prognoses and recovery plans. None of it matters now; what she remembers are their private moments spent trying to work through what had happened and find a way forward. He had sustained damage to the temporal lobe, so that while tests proved his hearing was unaffected, his ability to comprehend and process speech had suffered mightily. He was also stricken with aphasia to the extent that his ability to speak coherently was diminished. The result of all this had been that he was highly agitated and irritable. He'd been accustomed to making his way in the world with his intellect, producing the right answers at the right time. To find himself suddenly unable to express his thoughts was to be rendered ineffectual and utterly at the mercy of others. Didn't anyone understand that he was still the same man?_

 _On his first night home from hospital, she'd given him a wide berth. He had seemed content enough sat up in bed with the last few days' worth of The Guardian. While he had always been an avid reader, she'd noticed him positively devouring books and newspapers since the stroke. He could not understand her when she spoke to him, nor could he respond, but his ability to read and to comprehend what he took in must not have suffered. She had tried once - and only once - to remind him of the need to take a dose of medication and he had thrown the bottle at the wall. After that she'd left the dosing schedule where he could read it and simply made sure to watch him. He never missed a dose._

 _So he_ _ **could**_ _read. And he'd insisted upon signing the discharge papers himself, which indicated he was capable of writing, at least a bit. She was deeply hurt by the distance that had formed between them due to his inability to articulate himself and to understand her. But she'd an idea that might bridge the gap in communication._

 _She had got herself changed for bed, slipping into a nightgown that revealed the tiny baby bump just beginning to emerge. That had got his attention - she'd watched as his eyes tracked her movement all the way from the lavatory doorway to the bedside. She'd picked up a pen and a pad of paper off the bedside table and crawled in beside him._

I love you, _she had scrawled._ And I know you're in there. Can you write down what you want to tell me?

 _She'd watched him read it, had seen the light return to his eyes. He gestured with his left hand for the pen. She had placed it in his hand, holding the pad steady for him._

You are beautiful, _she'd watched him write._ Both of you.

 _Tears flowed unbidden from the corners of her eyes. Holding his gaze, she had pressed her lips to his. It seemed he'd understood the gesture loudly and clearly, as he returned the kiss with fervour._

Isobel, _he had continued,_ I'm sorry. Never been out of control before. Not my favourite.

 _It was her turn._

Understandable, _she had assured him._ You're going to get better, you know. Already so much improvement. And I **know** you're still there. Still brilliant. My love.

 _She'd seen the way his brow furrowed in response._ That's a good sign, _she'd thought, clinging to a fragment of hope._

If I don't … _came his next words._

" _No," she had whispered as she read. Catching herself, she'd pressed a hand against her mouth and watched as the rest of his message had formed:_

… You have so much love inside of you. Don't spend your life alone, Izzy. Find love again. Promise me.

 _But it's only ever been you,_ she remembers having thought at the time. _How could I love anyone else, when you_ _ **are**_ _love to me? And whyever would I want to?_

 _His hand had begun to tremble as he waited for her reply, and she'd seen it. He was meant to be resting and healing and it was clear to her that his fears over her well-being in the event of his demise were preventing him from doing so._

 _She was not in the business of lying to her husband. Forthrightness had always been the cornerstone of their relationship. How she longed to tell him that her fears for the future matched his own! But it wouldn't serve him. And so she had reached down deep, finding courage she hadn't known she possessed; courage that would prove to be her saving grace through the coming years._

There's not another like you anywhere, darling, _she had written, biting the inside of her cheek to keep the tears at bay lest they upset him._ But I promise you I will.

 **oOo**

Today, as she remembers, the tears don't come. She will vacillate countless times as she moves forward. Hell, she will doubt herself a dozen times before she has stepped out of the shower. But for a moment she thinks, _Perhaps I've gone round in sackcloth and ashes for long enough._ Reginald had loved her for her vivacity, her boldness. She had looked him in the eye and promised not to let that die. True; she may not know what it would be like to share love with a man who was not him. But he had taught her exactly what the substance of love was, and she'd learned it so well that she would recognise it anywhere.

She needn't look far at all.

* * *

 *** BPP - Biophysical profile. A test that measures the health of an unborn baby, typically including fetal nonstress testing and ultrasound. They're kind of fun, actually.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I'll be out of town for a few days and I wanted to get this out - and off my mind - beforehand. Your reviews have been out of this world, friends. Truly. Thank you!**

 **Lyrics herein are quoted from "Just Showed Up For My Own Life" by Sara Groves.**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

It's just gone seven when she finishes dressing. Her hands shaking, she picks up her phone and dials Richard's number.

 _"Hello."_ He answers on the second ring. Her stomach flips at the sound of his voice, whether from the timbre or her own nerves she cannot be sure.

" _Good morning, Richard,"_ she manages brightly. " _Listen, I was thinking that perhaps it would do for you to see the lounge before we go on the hunt for a sofa to fit it. I know I've given you the room's dimensions but I'm not the sort who can rely on the physical measurements alone."_ Her words are rushing out in what she thinks must sound like an incomprehensible jumble. " _And I thought you might like to see what's been keeping me. And I could fix breakfast, if you've not already eaten."_

" _Isobel,"_ he chides, " _You haven't got to convince me, you know. Are you asking me to come over?"_ True to form, he cuts straight to the heart of the matter. He is her perfect complement in that regard. _Perhaps not only in that regard._

Smiling, she tells him, " _Richard, come for breakfast."_

" _Right. I'm just putting a journal piece to bed. See you in an hour."_

They ring off and she stands in the middle of the lounge shaking her head. _Could it really be that simple?_ She catches herself humming under her breath as she fixes her hair and makeup. In the kitchen as she mixes up a batch of scones she muses that it's not bad, this. Returning to the land of the living. _Do you see this, Reg? I'm doing it, love. I'm doing it for you._ She thinks of the look he'd have fixed her with if he were there. _Right, okay, I'm doing it for_ _ **me.**_

Her door buzzes promptly at eight, and as she answers, "Come on up," she feels the nervous flutter of butterflies in her stomach. She's really doing this! Stepping out into the abyss with no guarantee she won't fall.

In the moment before she opens the door she closes her eyes. As she takes in a breath she sees Reg's face before her. " _Oh, but my darling,"_ she can hear him say, " _what if you fly?"*_

* * *

 **Spending my time sleepwalking  
Moving my mouth but not saying a thing  
Hoping the changes would take  
By working their way from the outside in**

* * *

She greets him with a smile that lights up her face. "Richard, come in," she tells him.

"Hi," he says, and as they embrace lightly he kisses her cheek. It's a customary enough greeting between them now, but today it makes her stomach flutter and she catches herself not wanting him to let go. She takes in the sight of him in jeans and boat shoes and a polo shirt the same shade of blue as his eyes, the topmost button left open. A day's growth of stubble covers his face. It's the most casual she's seen him yet, and he's never looked more handsome.

"Thank you for coming," she tells him. "Are you ready for coffee?"

"Ah, yes, badly in need of," he answers.

"Come on through and I'll give you the tour." She leads him through the lounge and down the corridor toward the kitchen, pointing out the floors, the transom she'd put in between the kitchen and dining area, chattering all the way. "I realise now that this might all make more sense had you seen the place before," she says, pausing near the coffee pot. "I'm sorry I never asked. It was quite inhospitable of me, considering how long we've been friends."

He touches her elbow. "Isobel, would you stop? I haven't had you to mine, either. Of course that's to do with the fact that it's no more than you'd expect from a confirmed bachelor …" This gets her to laugh, and he continues, "But you had your reasons, and who am I to judge? I will say I'm pleased to be here now. It's lovely - the time and consideration you've put in really make it a reflection of you."

She leans against the side, all wrong-footed for the moment. A strange sort of laugh-gasp-sob escapes from her chest and she chokes. Pressing a hand to her heart, she swallows the sensation down while he regards her curiously. Some moments later, she manages, "Forgive me, Richard … it would seem I've forgotten how to receive a compliment. Only, you see … for the longest time I wasn't sure there was anything _to_ reflect. It's an odd thing to have put one's life on the shelf for fifteen years without even realising it." She pauses again, and then meets his eyes. "But thank you. That means a great deal to me. If anyone would know who I am anymore, it's you."

Deciding that she would do well to get a handle on her emotions, she pulls out her phone and brings up the photos she'd thought to take before the renovations began. "Here you are," she says, passing it to him. "For reference. Have a wander if you like while I start breakfast." She knows that he knows she's shutting him out for the moment, and she sees his jaw working as he decides whether to say something. When he doesn't, she finds herself oddly conflicted by his reaction, half grateful to him for accepting her at face value; half angry that he doesn't call her on the carpet for meting herself out in such carefully-apportioned doses. She breaks eggs into a mixing bowl, adds milk and proceeds to to beat them to a froth in her upset. But in truth it's herself she's cross with - after all, she has effectively ceased to exist for nearly a full third of her life now. So much time squandered; her forties gone and nothing to show for them, and now the better part of her fifties as well, and she'll never get them back.

* * *

 **I was in love with an idea  
Preoccupied with how a life should appear  
Spending my time at the surface repairing the holes in the shiny veneer**

* * *

Once more she finds herself thinking of Reg, of what he'd say. _Look at it this way, my darling: starting right now, suppose you resolve to wring every last drop of life out of each day? Stop allowing fear to rule you; that's not who you are. There was a time you didn't know whether medicine was the right career path, what it would be like to be married to me or whether you'd survive giving birth to Matthew. And yet you moved through each and every unknown with your eyes wide open, even when I wasn't always so sure. Open your eyes, love. Don't overlook what's right in front of you._

She is shaken back to the present by Richard's voice from the kitchen doorway where he has been stood, likely watching her for some moments.

"Can I give you a hand with anything?" Hands in his pockets, one leg crossed in front of the other as he leans against the door casing, he is casual and unguarded. At home, in her home.

She shakes herself a little. "Oh, sorry … I was miles away! Ah, there's butter and jam on the fridge door if you'd like to take them to the table. Everything's ready; I'll just plate it up." As he is taking things to the table she pours coffee, and it's then that she notices it: two mugs, side by side on the countertop. His and hers. _It couldn't really be that simple, could it? All that I've been missing, literally_ _ **right in front of me?**_

Reg's voice rings in her head again. _Only one way to find out, isn't there?_

When Richard returns to the kitchen, she hands him one of the mugs. The tips of their fingers brush as he takes it from her and she gasps, feeling a frisson of electricity run up her arm and down the length of her spine.

"Are you alright?" he asks, regarding her curiously.

"Mmm," she manages, nodding. "Try that. I put some cream in but I don't know whether I've got it right."

He takes a sip and she watches him, the movement of his Adam's apple as he swallows. "Excellent," he pronounces.

It makes her smile; while it's nowhere near as important as it seems to her at the moment, she doesn't have to ask him in order to know how he takes his coffee. She has long thought him the attentive one of the pair of them, but it occurs to her now that that's only been due to her preoccupation with the past. The truth - the present reality she can deny no longer - is that he is a significant presence in her life. Perhaps even the most significant.

He is back by her side again, watching the peculiar expression on her face as she mulls over something evidently quite perplexing.

She dimly registers him saying something to her. "Hmmm?" she mutters.

"Are you quite well, Isobel? Don't take this the wrong way but you just seem … _funny_ today; almost giddy."

"Oh, Richard," she sighs, carrying their plates to the table. "How can I explain?" She pauses to think, adding as an afterthought, "Please don't wait for me to come up with something brilliant; go ahead and eat."

He laughs, and so does she. The tension broken, she finds the courage to continue. "Grief is a strange thing," she begins. "More than half my life I was with Reg. We were absurdly happy, really, not without our struggles but blissfully unaware that there would ever come a day when we weren't together, not until just before the end." She shakes her head, taking a sip of her coffee, still unsure whether what she's telling him makes sense. "He told me … After his stroke he told me to find love again when he was gone and not to let myself die alongside him. He made me promise." She meets his eyes, smiling sadly. "When one is in love the way we were, one will promise all manner of things. Of course I said I would - anything to bring him peace. Anything to see him smile. But I've not done it; or rather, I hadn't done, not at all. Not until just recently did I even try." She blinks thoughtfully, noting the fact that he hasn't taken his eyes off her since they sat down. "I thought I was doing, that I was working through it, but you see that's precisely it: I was _working_ through it. Working instead of living, instead of doing the hard thing and finding my new normal, post-Reg. And I've missed so much, and it took—" She stops herself suddenly.

* * *

 **There are so many ways to hide  
There are so many ways not to feel  
There are so many ways to deny what is real**

* * *

"What is it?" he asks, somehow both gentle and demanding.

"It sounds ridiculous," she tells him.

"Perhaps it is," he says teasingly, getting her to smile in earnest. "Only one way to find out."

She laughs out loud at this.

"Alright, now I think you really had better explain yourself," he says.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just … You sounded just like my husband there. Like something he would have said." She takes a breath, and he grants her the time to collect herself. A few moments pass and she continues, looking him straight in the eye. "It took our getting to know one another, you and I - besides just as colleagues, I mean - to make me realise there's a great deal of life left to live, and that I want to be fully present for it."

"That's wonderful, Isobel," he says.

"Is it? You see I'm not like this, Richard. I'm not this shrinking violet, controlled by fear, or I didn't used to be."

"You're not telling me anything I wasn't well aware of, you know. I've seen you in theatre. I've borne the brunt of your wrath; don't forget."

She looks at him ruefully. "Yes. Not my finest hour. Dreadfully sorry for that." There had been a particular case a few months back during which a scheduling mishap had him listed as the NICU doc on call, but he'd been supposed to be off duty that day and was doing a shift volunteering with the ambulance service. She'd been unable to reach him and an emergency had arisen with her patient's baby, and when the hospital had finally located him she'd dressed him down in theatre in front of both her nurses and his.

He shakes his head. "No, I didn't say it for that reason. You apologised at the time and it's water under the bridge. I only mention it now to say that I know what you're made of. I didn't think it was limited exclusively to a professional capacity."

"Thanks … I think," she chuckles.

"That's not all there is to it, though," he deduces.

"No," she admits. "Not at all. But you didn't come here for this, and your time is valuable, and I should hate to keep you—"

"Keep me from what, Isobel? Reading JAMA in the recliner? We'll have your sofa sorted inside of an hour, and contrary to what you may believe I haven't got a list of backlog ten miles long that work keeps me from seeing to. Now come on … what is it?"

She looks down into her coffee cup. Noting its emptiness, she frowns and begins to rise from the table. "Would you care for some more?"

He raises a hand, halting her. "Yes, but I'll get it. You sit."

"Right." She broods, just for a moment. He _would_ have to persist. Finally she swallows down her apprehension. "Do you recall the conversation we had just after Matthew announced his engagement to Lavinia?"

He returns with their coffee and sets hers before her. "Of course I do. I wasn't sure whether you'd speak to me again after that."

She cocks her head inquisitively. "I don't know what you mean."

He grins. "Oh, I think you do." He attempts to jog her memory. "I'm afraid I'd too much to drink. You saved me from making a complete fool of myself."

She still doesn't get it. "What … when you asked whether I'd— ?" Recollection hits her. "Oh." She smiles, feeling herself blush a little as she calls up the memory of the two of them across the table from one another at the pub.

 _He had just come back from the bar with a glass of sherry for her and a pint of lager for himself._

" _I'm so sorry," he'd told her, setting her drink in front of her, "the queue was a mile long."_

" _Thank you." She'd smiled, accepting the drink from him. "What was it you wanted to ask me?"_

" _Well I'm not sure I have the right …"_

" _Please, Richard._ _If anyone's got the right to be asking me anything, it's you."_

 _He'd given her a tight smile. "Well, thank you for that. Just … all this talk of Matthew and Lavinia's impending nuptials has got me thinking." He'd paused to fortify his courage with a swig of drink. "I'd be interested to know … if you've ever thought of marrying again."_

" _Are you thinking of getting married, Richard? I wasn't aware you'd anyone in your sights! Well, if you are, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"_

" _Why?"_

" _Well, with good friends like you, I enjoy my life as it is, and I wouldn't want to risk things by changing it."**_

At the time she had thought little of it; perhaps he was waxing philosophical, his lips loosened by the drink much as her own had been. Recalling the conversation now, however, she realises the possibility that his meaning might well have been something else entirely. _Oh._ _ **Oh!**_

* * *

 **And I just showed up for my own life  
And I'm standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright**

* * *

"Hold on a moment," she tells him as the butterflies in her stomach beat their wings in a wild frenzy. "That's not the part of that evening that I was referring to, and yet I think we may be both of us beating round the same bush."

"How do you mean?" he asks, his eyes bright.

"I'm talking about when I said to you that I didn't see the kind of love there - between Matthew and Lavinia - that would sustain a marriage."

He is silent for a moment, and she watches him while he thinks, noting the way his eyes appear to have turned a stormy grey. "Oh, yes, I remember now."

" _They aren't right for each other, Richard, and I don't simply feel that way because he's my son," she had told him. "He's just as wrong for her as she is for him."_

" _What makes you say that?" he'd asked, holding up a hand when she'd shot him a withering look. "I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm not saying anything one way or the other, actually. Though they certainly do seem to get on well enough."_

" _But is that the standard we're meant to be applying to marriage these days? 'Well enough?' I'm sorry, but 'well enough' isn't going to get them through it when they're short on the mortgage payment, or when - God forbid - they lose a baby or one's got to put their own career on hold for awhile so the other can advance. If Reg and I hadn't loved each other deeply we would never have weathered those things."_

" _That's as may be," he had said carefully, "but will you allow that those types of circumstances could serve as the very catalyst by which love grows deeper? Look, I'm no expert, God knows. But is it possible that you look at all relationships through the lens of your own marriage? If it doesn't look exactly like what you had - which, by the way, I don't discount - is it necessarily lacking? And mightn't you be doing a disservice to yourself - unwittingly deciding that no relationship will ever match what you had; therefore, it's not worth trying?"_

 _She'd narrowed her eyes at him in jest. "Damn you," she chuckled. "Point taken."_

"Richard," she tells him now, "I think that I'm feeling now what it seems you were feeling then."

A look of pure shock crosses his face. "Isobel, I need you to be very clear about what it is you're telling me here. In this particular arena we can't afford a misunderstanding."

Wringing her hands, she glances around the flat, thinking how much easier this conversation would be if there were a proper sofa to sit on. "Just … just come into the kitchen with me, would you please?"

* * *

 **I'm going to feel all my emotions  
I'm going to look you in the eyes  
I'm going to listen and hear until it's finally clear and it changes our lives**

* * *

He follows her and they end up on opposite sides of the island from one another.

"If I hadn't been so utterly oblivious that night at the pub, would I have understood you to have been speaking - metaphorically, of course - about the two of us?" It has been a very long time since she's put someone on the spot like this. It makes her squirm a little. _Hopefully only on the inside,_ she thinks.

He sighs. "Isobel, I—"

"Richard, please. Do you think this is easy for me? You've asked me to be clear and now I'm asking you the same. I've known you for a long time now, and in all these years there's never been a woman in your life. Why not?"

"I don't think it was a conscious decision," he tells her. "I've never really seen the point in dating, after the engagement, you know …" Whatever happened there, it's plain to her that it broke his heart.

"Yes," she says softly, graciously choosing not to press him further on that point.

"And then it was easy to hide behind work and say that I hadn't the time," he admits. "In that regard we are one and the same."

"Only in that regard?" she asks. "Look, Richard, I wasn't being fully honest with you that night. If it was the case that you were indeed speaking about the pair of us specifically, then I should have said that of course I've thought of it, but that the only man I would ever consider marrying is my dearest friend and I should hate to lose him if—"

He interrupts her. "Then what you're saying is—"

"That I'm in love with you, yes. And that it terrifies me." _Oh my God, what have I said? What have I done?_ She is struck by a wave of dizziness and while she's never fainted, she thinks that now she just might.

"Isobel." The tone of his voice registers a myriad of emotions: _awe, fear, disbelief._

"Yes?"

"Come here."

She walks around the island to stand before him, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest. He holds out his hands to her and when she places her own in them she can't help but gasp. She had so very long since written off the possibility of anyone touching her again.

He pulls her in, so close that she can feel the warmth of his body radiating off him. "Is this alright?" he asks softly. She can do nothing but nod. "I love you, Isobel."

"You do?" she whispers. _Were his eyes always so blue?_

He grins at her, finding her incredulity adorable, and nods. "I have done from the time we met."

She reaches up without thinking, her hands coming to rest at the nape of his neck, and laughs, the sort of laughter that bubbles up from deep within. It rings of relief, of victory, of rising from the ashes. Her head falls forward, into his shoulder, and his arms come around her waist. In an instant she is yanked - _like a weed,_ she muses - out of her stupor, out of a long hibernation devoid of feeling, into a world of pure sensation. The softness of his shirt against her face, the heat of his body beneath the fabric, the safety of his arms enfolding her. For long moments he simply holds her, rubbing soothing circles across her back.

After some time she raises her head to look at him. She has always thought him handsome; now he positively takes her breath away. She touches his face, tracing the line of his jaw. "Richard," she breathes, "I love you." She stares at his mouth, wanting to kiss him; hesitating; not sure she remembers how.

He cups her cheek in his palm. "You can, you know. I want you to."

 _Oh, my God. I'm going to kiss him!_ Her heart pounds as she draws him closer with a hand at the nape of his neck. Softly, tentatively, she touches her lips to his. He responds gently at first, deepening the kiss as her hands smooth over his shoulders. He draws her bottom lip between both of his own and a tiny moan escapes her mouth as her lips part for him.

"Soft lips," he marvels as they break apart. He traces them with the pad of his thumb.

"I'm so glad they still work," she tells him, her expression registering astonishment. "I haven't used them for kissing in such a long time!"***

Her candour makes him smile as his arms tighten around her. "Darling, you're trembling," he says, his brow furrowing.

She nods. "I'm alright; it's just … I never expected this. It's rather like a limb that's fallen asleep, you know? Numb almost to the point of death until the blood flow returns, and suddenly you realise you can feel so much it aches."

"Perhaps we should sit," he suggests, his hand at her elbow as he guides her toward the lounge, helping her into the armchair.

"I'm sorry I haven't got something better sorted," she says as he kneels on the floor in front of her, taking her hands in his once again.

He shakes his head. "It's what I'm here for, remember? Now tell me … what's troubling you?"

She looks at their hands, thinking. "It isn't that I've only just been struck by the realisation that I'm in love with you. I've known it for some time now. I knew it at the pub." She squeezes his hands, meeting his eyes for a brief instant before looking away. "I've been in exactly one relationship in all of my life. And Reg and I never dated; at least, not in any conventional sense. What I'm saying is that I've no idea how to do this, Richard! Suppose … well, suppose I'm awful at it?"

He has to bite the inside of his cheek - it would not do to laugh at her at such a moment as this. And it's not that he finds her concern amusing. It's only that with all that she's been through, _this_ is what she's worried about: that, for all intents and purposes, she doesn't know how to be a girlfriend.***

* * *

 *** - From the poem _What If I Fall?_ by Erin Hanson**

 **** - Downton Abbey S03 E09, _A Journey to the Highlands_**

 ***** - I'm borrowing from Nancy Meyers here, from one of my favourite scenes of my favourite film, Something's Gotta Give.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Once again I'm getting ready to go away and cleaning up my to-do list. I'd like to have the chapter that follows this up before I leave simply for continuity purposes, but we'll see.  
**

 **Guest reviewers, friends, everyone who takes the time to read and to share your thoughts with me: thank you doesn't begin to cover it. Your words of encouragement are precious to me and I treasure every one!**

 **Lyrics at the close are from "Traveling" by Tennis.**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

 _She looks at their hands, thinking. "It isn't that I've only just been struck by the realisation that I'm in love with you. I've known it for some time now. I knew it at the pub." She squeezes his hands, meeting his eyes for a brief instant before looking away. "I've been in exactly one relationship in all of my life. And Reg and I never dated; at least, not in any conventional sense. What I'm saying is that I've no idea how to do this, Richard! Suppose … Well, suppose I'm awful at it?"_

 _He has to bite the inside of his cheek - it would not do to laugh at her at such a moment as this. And it's not that he finds her concern amusing. It's only that with all that she's been through, this is what she's worried about: that, for all intents and purposes, she doesn't know how to be a girlfriend._

* * *

"Isobel," he says gently, "I'm no better suited to this than you are. We've done alright so far, haven't we?"

She chuckles. "Are you saying we get on _well enough?_ " she teases, harkening back to their conversation in the pub.

"I am, rather." He grins. "Come here," he tells her in a half-whisper, the sound making her stomach tighten delightfully. She slides forward in the chair and his arms come around her waist and he gazes into her eyes. His breath is warm on her cheek and her own breath catches. Her eyelids flutter closed as his lips brush hers. Cradling his face in her hands (oh, God, she can touch him now!), she leans back and he follows, resting his weight on his elbows over her as she returns his kiss.

It has been a long time, such a very long time indeed, since she has done this: kissing simply for kissing's sake. He's brilliant at it, she decides. It likely doesn't say much for her as a feminist, but the feel and the taste and the shape of his mouth; the warmth of his body; the knowledge that he wants to be doing this with her all have her thinking one thought: _LOVE. I love him. I_ _ **love**_ _him!_ It is far from a fresh revelation; it's only that she has not, prior to today, allowed herself to quantify it with words, to speak it into existence. Because love, in her experience, leads to loss.

She gasps at the thought, and he pulls back to watch her. The sensation of the tips of his fingers running over the contours of her cheekbones breaks through her musings.

"I'm frightened," she tells him, feeling the burden begin to lift as she gives it a name. "I don't know how to kiss you without loving you, or to let you hold me without giving my heart into your hands." Speaking of her heart, it is _pounding_ as she makes this admission. "I can't love you only a little bit, Richard, or keep parts of myself back from you."

He kisses her quiet. "Isobel, _I know,_ " he tells her as their lips part. "Do you reckon you'll frighten me off, love? Do you know why there hasn't been anyone since we've known one another?"

Shaking her head, she draws an anticipatory breath as she waits for him to continue.

"There were a few over the years who showed an interest, but I couldn't reciprocate. I had no way of knowing whether you'd ever be willing to risk it, but if friends were all we'd ever been it would still have afforded me the chance to love you from afar. It's never escaped my notice that there's fire inside you, darling. And far from putting me off you, it's what draws me in. I don't want you to hold back, alright?" He runs his fingers through her hair, soothing her, and she closes her eyes against the sensation.

"You make me feel things I've not felt since I was a girl, Richard. I'm not at all sure what will happen to me, to _us,_ and I'm used to being sure! I know how to be a wife, and I know how to be a doctor." She pauses, casting her eyes towards the floor. "And I know how to be alone. But I don't know how to do … _this!_ " She gestures to indicate herself and him and this newfound _thing_ between them.

"Neither do I, sweet girl," he says gently, drawing her into an embrace. "I've no better an idea than you do. Shall we figure it out together then? Hmmm? Shall we give it a go?"

Looking up at him, into those eyes she's had to will herself not to get lost in from the first time they met, she nods. "I can't lie to myself - or to you - any longer and pretend that I don't feel what I feel. You know me so well that you had to have known, Richard. Didn't you?"

"I did," he confesses with a twinkle in his eyes. "You've a lousy poker face, darling."

She giggles. "You don't know the half of it." Pausing, she thinks about his admission that he knew of her feelings for him before she did. "But you waited without any guarantee …" she continues, astonished. "... I mean, that had to have been terribly frustrating."

He shrugs. "I haven't lived this long to settle. You were worth the wait."

She smiles prettily. "My God, listen to you! I reckon you'll change your tune after our first row."

"Isobel, we had our first row within a week of meeting one another. The shine's off, darling, no offence. You're not going to talk me out of loving you, alright? You might as well stop trying. Now let's go and find you a sofa, shall we?"

For the first time ever, she finds herself not wanting to leave her flat. She'll have to overcome it straightaway, but she would hole up with him here and cling to this moment forever if at all it were practical.

 **oOo**

"Oh, I do like your car," she says as he helps her into his white Range Rover. She tells him she thinks it may be time to consider letting go of her old Lexus IS for one of these. He thinks that between them they'll only need the one car anyhow and she shouldn't trouble herself about it. But he doesn't tell her that, not yet. Their relationship is only just an hour old, after all.

She reaches tentatively for his hand as he drives and sighs with relief and contentment when he squeezes her own hand as their fingers wrap together. It's such a little thing, but when one has spent as many years as she has missing (and craving) those tiny affirmations that she is part of something - an _us -_ the little things are positively monumental in their importance.

The furniture shop he takes her to is one whose chief clientele are interior designers - those who know exactly what they're looking for. As such the two of them are left to their devices and, rather like Goldilocks, they try out one sofa after another. She barely contains a fit of giggles when he sits down on one and abruptly pops back up because a spring pokes him in the arse. She sees one she likes the looks of, but the seat proves to be so deep and so plush that when she tries to stand up her feet don't reach the floor. At this he _does_ laugh, so that when he offers her a hand up she pulls him down with her in retribution.

After half a dozen tries she finds _the one:_ a two-seater sofa with a corner chaise in soft grey leather. The list price is £1500.

"This is it," she tells him. "The proportions are perfect, don't you think?" She tries the chaise and discovers that it reclines. "Alright, that's it," she sighs, envisioning many restful nights. "I'm sold." And then, "Richard, come here." She pats the space next to her.

"Isobel, what are you? —"

"Well, we've got to see if it fits the both of us, haven't we?"

 _He loves her._ They have been together for four hours and she is buying furniture with the two of them in mind. _That's my girl,_ he thinks. _Now just mind you don't go second-guessing yourself._ Before she has the chance to change her mind he sits down next to her, stretching out his legs, his thigh brushing against hers. Her eyes meet his and both of their cheeks flush pink. She elbows him and they giggle. There is a look in his eyes that says, ' _I would kiss you if we weren't in this damned store,'_ and she just manages to cover her mouth so that her gasp is inaudible to all but him.

He locates the owner of the shop, an acquaintance of his, and the two men turn the sofa over so that he can inspect the frame. "It's solid beech," he tells Isobel. "Nicely built, but it ought to have a fifth leg there in the centre for support. And the feet want replacing as they're glued onto the frame." To the proprietor he says, "You and I both know that's not a £1500 piece. We'll take it for £1250 inclusive of delivery. We're home all day; how soon can it be arranged?"

She watches the exchange, thoroughly impressed. She hadn't figured him for a take-no-prisoners sort. She suspects there's a great deal about him that resides below the surface. The notion of getting to know the man behind the doctor is thrilling in a way that, not for the first time, makes her heart beat faster.

 **oOo**

They walk away with her sofa done and dusted to the tune of £1150 inclusive, Richard having talked his friend down another hundred quid because Isobel paid cash in full. Delivery is set for four o'clock this afternoon. When he opens the car door for her she gives in to the urge and pulls him to her, kissing him thoroughly. He responds in kind, tracing the outline of her lips with his index finger when they part.

"What was that for?" he asks, a delighted grin quirking at the corner of his mouth.

"Because I _can,"_ she delivers, looking him straight in the eye. _What has come over me?_ she wonders.

 _What has come over her?_ he marvels. She smiles; she laughs heartily. She flirts with him, and does it boldly. Part of him always knew it was in her somewhere: joy. Repressed, perhaps; buried beneath grief she'd never quite known how to shake. Now that she has finally tapped into it, she takes his breath away.

She spies him looking at her. "Penny for them," she says, catching his chin between her thumb and forefinger.

"You're beautiful," he answers. "It's nothing new, just … I can say it to you now."

It flaws her to hear him say the words, less because she doesn't think it's possible that such a descriptor could be applied to her than because _he does._ "Flatterer," she whispers, her cheeks colouring.

"Beauty," he counters, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "My beauty."

In the car on the ride back to Notting Hill she gets him to tell her how he got into building furniture and how he knows so much about it. His grandfather was a woodworker with whom Richard spent summers at his cottage in Luss, on the shores of Loch Lomond. He describes the man as "a real native son" and "quiet until he wasn't," and says that as a lad he was fascinated by watching him turn pieces on his lathe and carve fine details by hand. In order to get into the mind of the man he idolised, Richard took up knife and chisel and worked alongside him, until his skills became sufficiently honed that the two began building pieces together, many of which were then sold in area shops. Young Richard was chuffed to have earned money by his own hand, but his grandfather denied him the right to spend it. Instead both shares of their combined profits went into a trust fund that eventually paid Richard's undergraduate tuition fees at Edinburgh.

"But where do you work now?" she asks. "Surely there isn't sufficient space at your flat."

"I've rented shop space from some mates from the woodworkers' guild," he tells her.

"Will you show me sometime?" She regularly witnesses the precision and focus with which he treats newborn babies and thinks it would be thrilling to watch him work avocationally.

"What say you come with me next weekend?" he offers. "I'll be finishing up your coffee table."

"So long as I won't be in the way," she says. He may not know it, but she does: one day, no matter how smoothly their relationship progresses, he'll want to put some distance between himself and her from time to time. Curse her practical mind for thinking that now!

As if reading her thoughts (his ability to do this really shouldn't surprise her any longer, but it does), he enfolds her hand in his own. "When I need breathing room, I'll tell you, alright?"

He takes her through parts of the city she's never seen before and she wonders whether it's prettier than she realised, or if perhaps she's experiencing a bit of _la vie en rose_ because she is in love. It's strange, she muses. The sky is the same one she's been looking at for nearly sixty years, but today it looks so much _bluer_ \- so blue, in fact, that it rivals Richard's eyes. He stops off to grab coffee at Costa and she notices that the same blend she's been drinking for ten years now tastes fuller and richer than it ever has done. It really is quite silly; nothing is different. The sun rose this morning just as it has done for eons. The robins who've built their nest in the eaves above her balcony sang the good-day song they always sing. She is still Isobel Turnbull Crawley; daughter of John and Fiona, sister to Edward, mother of Matthew. Widow of Reginald. Chief of Obstetrics at St. Mary's Hospital.

 _But everything has changed._

"You've gone awfully quiet," he remarks, glancing at her.

"Hmm?" she says. "Oh, sorry, love." _My, my, but how easily that trips off the tongue!_ "Just wool-gathering." She slides over toward him as much as the console will allow and lays her head on his shoulder.

"Happy thoughts, I hope?" he asks as his thumb smooths over the back of her hand.

"So very happy," she affirms. "Though if I'm honest I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. As I was saying before, I don't know how this works. I've never been just a little bit in love or had a casual _anything,_ so I suppose I'm already looking at certain things I do and thinking, _I'll be able to do that with Richard now,_ when in fact I have no indication that that's what you'll want."

 _I'm not the only one keen to jump the queue then,_ he thinks with a grin as he pulls into the car park. He shuts off the engine and puts his hands on her shoulders. "We're a right pair, you and I," he tells her. "Do you know that? Do you know that this morning I almost said - when you mentioned exchanging your car - that there wasn't any sense in it because we'll only need one car between the two of us. And I stopped myself for fear of it being too soon!"

"Did you?" she asks, and he nods. She laughs, then kisses the end of his nose and laughs again. Hand in hand they walk to her door. "You'll come up, won't you? Let me give you lunch? I know it's a bit late, but—"

"That sounds lovely, darling," he says. _As if you could get rid of me now,_ he thinks. "Would it help if I hung round until the sofa's delivered? Make sure it's done properly?"

 _Thank heaven above, he's beaten me to it._ She sighs with relief. For as much as she'd been wracking her brain, she couldn't conceive of a way of saying, ' _Never leave, will you? Please just say you'll never go,'_ that didn't smack of neediness. What she ends up saying to him is, "I'd be most grateful, so long as you're sure I'm not keeping you from anything."

 _Please, darling; do you know how long I've hoped that one day you'd be the one to keep me from all of the things?_ This time he says very nearly what he's thinking. "There's no place I'd rather be."

She fixes chicken salad from the roast chicken she had for dinner last night while he slices bread and fruit. She can't help but notice the ease with which they work in the kitchen together. With both of them left-handed, there is none of the awkward bumping of elbows. And because he has been single for so long he is used to cooking and can find his way round without asking. When he moves close behind her to place utensils in the sink ("Pardon me, darling,") a pleasant shiver runs the length of her spine and she indulges herself in a momentary daydream. Suppose she were to step backwards a bit at just the instant he moved forwards? And imagine if his hands then went to her hips in an effort to steady her? And if she were then to press her bottom back against him, what would he do? She catches herself. _Steady on, old girl. This time you really are putting the cart before the horse._

The heat of the day doesn't touch her east-facing balcony, making it an ideal spot to enjoy a late lunch. They forgo the small table and chairs in favour of the bench as it affords them closer proximity to one another. As he takes in the surroundings he notices that they are cocooned in white roses. There are containers of them on the floor and suspended from the railings, trellises supporting climbers on each wall and an arbor overhead. "If I were to hazard a guess I'd say this is your favourite spot," he tells her as they balance plates of food on their laps.

"You'd be right," she says with a soft smile. "I sit here in the evenings and it's just quiet enough I can convince myself I'm not in the city at all." She closes her eyes and turns her face skyward and takes his breath away.

"So you're a gardener, then?" he asks, trying not to get caught up in the artistry of her features - long, dark lashes that curl against her cheeks and golden skin that appears to store up sunlight. He has admired her at a distance for such a long time and now suddenly here she is beside him, close enough that he can count her freckles and smell her shampoo, and the longing to take her into his arms is nearly overpowering.

"Oh no," she answers, the corners of her eyes crinkling when she smiles, "it feels rather more like I play one on television. There's only so much I can do in this space. But in Yorkshire …"

"I reckon I need to see this Yorkshire house," he says.

"It's very dear to me," she agrees. "And the gardens are lovely."

"It must be quite something, for the way your face lights up whenever you mention it."

Her cheeks flush at his words. "It's my favourite place. When I retire, that's where I'll go."

"Will you show it to me?" he asks. "How often do you go?"

"Oh, whenever I've a free moment," she admits. "Often I'll go up just for the day, even though it means eight hours' driving by the time I return. Do you know? …" she hesitates. They've finished eating, so she gathers the plates and sets them on the table.

"What is it?" he asks as she sits back down. She moves close and he puts his arm around her shoulders and _why did she fight the idea of this for so long? He feels like_ _ **home.**_

"I've wanted to show it to you for a long time," she says softly, "only I didn't know how. How to ask you, how to show you. I've spent many of my happiest moments in that house, but some of the darkest have been spent there as well."

"I want to know about all of it," he assures her, running his fingers through her hair. "Everything you're willing to share."

"I'll take you," she tells him, leaning into his touch. "Next time we have a weekend off. Which reminds me … have you sent in your RSVP for that awful wedding?"

"What, Larry Grey?" he asks. She nods. "No; I was rather hoping an act of God would conveniently incapacitate me so I wouldn't have to go." He has a habit of smirking impishly and then straightaway casting his eyes towards the floor when he says something self-deprecating. The effect is brilliant in its subtlety and she finds it does things to her. There are strange flutters low in her belly, heat slowly building, a fire rising.

She laughs at his answer. "You know you've got to make an appearance," she says, not chiding him; simply stating a fact. She looks at her hands in her lap, then at him. "We could go together. It's only the reception, and we won't have to stay terribly long." She takes his hand in hers and brings it to her lips, kissing the back of it.

He nods. "If we've got to do this we're far better off joining forces."

"I think this is the first time I've ever heard you speak a disparaging word about anyone," she remarks.

"Don't say you've gone off me." He moves his hand to her cheek until it rests in his palm. _So soft,_ he muses.

"Please," she tuts. "No, I'm no admirer of young Mr. Grey! But what's he ever done to you?"

Larry Grey is the son of Richard "Dickie" Grey, chairman of finance for the board of directors of St. Mary's Hospital. Neither man possesses any formal medical training, but the elder has an apparent fascination with medicine in general and Isobel in particular. The younger seems keen to make a general nuisance of himself despite his having no affiliation whatsoever with the hospital.

"He doesn't need to have done anything to me; I heard the venom he spewed about you! And his father - that fount of all medical knowledge - can't keep the little bastard from running his mouth. Cut him off from the bloody trust fund! That'll shut him up!"

"Go on, tell us how you really feel," she teases. She's only ever seen him in a lather like this when he's been cross with her. _He's gorgeous when he's angry,_ she thinks. _What am I saying; he's gorgeous,_ _ **period.**_ _End of._

She suspects he's jealous. Just about this time last year, Dickie Grey had proclaimed his love for Isobel over what she had understood as a business dinner during which they were to discuss fundraising for a dozen additional beds on the maternity ward. While she had always been cordial toward him, he was nothing more than a business acquaintance in her mind, and she had swiftly told him as much. But not before Larry had got wind of his father's infatuation and declared before a meeting of the hospital board that the "wide disparity" between his father's background and Isobel's would stand her in poor stead to fill his late mother's shoes. Dickie had physically removed his son from the meeting and apologised profusely to Isobel, who had taken it with grace - chiefly due to the bizarre nature of the entire situation.

Now Larry is engaged to be married to a woman every bit his conniving, arrogant equal, and because they are department heads, Isobel and Richard both have been invited to the wedding reception.

"It doesn't matter, you know," she tells Richard, turning her face into his palm and pressing her lips to the centre of it. "My mother always told me to let idle words roll off me like water off a duck's back. 'At least if they're talking about you,' she'd say, 'they're not talking about someone else.' I haven't got to defend myself to anyone; my work speaks for itself. Those whose opinions I value - yours and my son's - you know who I am." Holding his face in her hands, she looks into his eyes. "And _you_ have my heart." She kisses him, her lips opening at his gentle urging. The tip of her tongue runs along the inside edge of his bottom lip and he pulls her closer, his fingers curling against her scalp as he nips at her lips with the edges of his teeth.

She had forgotten that kissing the man she loves could be like this, that her heart could threaten to beat its way out of her chest. Heat swirls in her belly again, a coiling tightness. A deep, primal ache that simultaneously exhilarates and terrifies her. She begins to laugh at herself, at the unlikeliness of her circumstances, as they break apart.

"You know you're absolutely brilliant, but you're a bit of a nutter," he tells her, because as her best friend he has earned the right to say such things.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just … last night I lay awake, as I've done every night for fifteen years, and figured I was past it all, and now … Now here I am doing things I thought I'd forgotten how to do, feeling things I've only ever felt once before. I …" A blush rises, colouring her cheeks bright red. She tries to turn away from him but he doesn't let her.

"Tell me," he urges, catching her wrists in his hands.

"I want you, Richard. It's not a new development …" She presses a palm to her forehead. _I can't believe I'm saying this out loud!_ "... But it was never a possibility until today. Not that I'm saying it's a possibility now. I—"

He presses the tip of his index finger to her lips. "Oi," he says, raising the volume of his voice above hers, "Shh. It's alright, Isobel. This is all new, but it's not. It's been a long time coming and it isn't going away. There's time, and we can take it.* You're beautiful, my darling, and I think I'd embarrass us both if you knew how much I want you. But you're not ready, not yet. When you are, I'll be here." _Always,_ he wants to say. _Yours faithfully unto death._ But even if she were ready to hear it, he will save those words for a moment he's been planning from the day he met her.

"I don't want to wait too long," she says, smoothing the collar of his shirt.

"You and I both know these things can't be rushed," he says as she blinks thoughtfully. _She has the most impossibly long lashes._ "It doesn't matter how long it takes." He says it again: "I'm here." _You're the one I was always waiting for._

* * *

 **Now with your hand in mine  
The heat strikes me as divine  
Seated here by my side  
As day blurs into the night**

 **How is it you seem to know what I tried not to show?**

* * *

 *** - This line borrowed from Elizabeth Jane Howard. From _Falling._ Because I love it.  
**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: This is not exactly what I'd had in mind for this chapter, but I can't say I'm disappointed.**

 **Lyrics are courtesy of Lindsey Buckingham, from the song "Trouble." As I thought about Richard and Isobel's transition from friends to lovers, that song kept coming to mind.**

 **xx,**  
 **~ejb~**

* * *

Their meetings over the next few weeks seem almost clandestine in nature, as if they've got something to hide, which makes them laugh. Nothing could be further from the truth, and if anyone finds out they're together they've decided they're more than happy to confirm it. But for now they coordinate breaks, one of them going to the caff for lunch or coffee; the other going to the garage to unlock the car. There is a rash of deliveries at mid-month, seemingly coordinating with the full moon (she will never believe that there is no science to support such a coincidence), that keeps her at the hospital for 63 straight hours during which she doesn't see him at all. He, meanwhile, is stuck at his office revalidating his credentials with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and funnelling labouring MFM patients over to her team at the hospital.

Somewhere around hour 57 of her captivity she receives a text message from him.

 _\- How are you fixed for coffee?_

Sat at one of the communal tables in the physicians' lounge, she swirls the dregs of the greyish sludge pumped out by the vending machine in her white Styrofoam cup. She pulls a face and types her reply.

 _I generally prefer mine without lumps. When this is over I'm going to sleep for a week. Then I'm going to drink an entire pot of Hope & Glory._

She imagines the smirk that crosses his lips.

 _\- We seem to finally have hit a lull over here,_ comes his next message. _I've no more to send you at the moment._

 _I would be jumping for joy were it not for the fact I've just sat down for the first time in ten hours,_ she replies. Then: _How many reams of paper should Regent's Park be expecting from you?_

 _\- I think I've killed an entire rainforest xD_

She giggles. _And where do you stand? All recertified?_

 _\- Can't stand anywhere,_ he types. _Swimming. In. Paper. I'm certifiable, all right!_

"Aww," she catches herself saying out loud. _My poor darling. Ring me when you're sprung, eh?_

 _\- Only if you don't call first. Signing off now. Can't see straight._

 _I'm due back in theatre anyway. Go and close your eyes for twenty minutes._ Despite her fatigue, she grins like an idiot as she types, _I love you._

 _\- I love you too. X._

 **oOo**

When at last she does make it home, she starts a load of scrubs in the washing machine and flops down on her new reclining chaise. She sleeps for eleven dreamless hours. When she awakens, her first thought is _My God, I can't move._ Her lower back is so stiff from back-to-back twelve-hour stints on her feet that it's sore to the touch. As much as she needs caffeine to clear the thick fog that shrouds her brain, she gingerly makes her way to the bathroom first. She retrieves two tablets of aspirin from the medicine cabinet and cleans her teeth as the bathtub fills.

Halfway through her soak she could swear she smells coffee brewing, but it's likely just a product of wishful thinking. Matthew wouldn't be over at - _What time is it, anyway?_ She glances at the clock. Quarter past eleven on a Friday morning. When the water goes cold she pulls the stopper and stands, stretching. _Marginally improved,_ she thinks. She wraps up in her dressing gown and runs a comb through her damp hair. _Coffee._

As she pads to the kitchen there is no mistaking it: the coffee has already been made. She hears the refrigerator door open and shut. "I thought you were meeting the developers today," she calls out to her son. But when she turns the corner she is met with the sight of Richard at the hob, stirring pancake batter.

She'd given him a key two weeks ago. Somehow in her sleep-addled state she had forgotten.

"Oh my God, hi!" She rushes to greet him.

He pulls her into an embrace. She is warm and damp and soft, smelling faintly of lavender. Her mouth when he kisses her is minty-sweet and yielding. She burrows into his neck, resting her lips against the pulse beating there.

He is wonderfully warm and solid when she hugs him. He smells of aftershave and bacon and he kisses her breathless.

"How did you know I needed to see you?" she asks him, her voice carrying notes of relief and wonderment.

He smirks at her in amusement. "I'll take that to mean you don't mind the intrusion then," he quips.

"Come here, you," she purrs, winding her arms around his neck. Drawing him down with gentle pressure at his nape she nips at his lips, the tip of her tongue darting out to soothe the sting.

His hands fall to her hips and he moans softly against her mouth. She is bare beneath her dressing gown and if he doesn't put some space between them soon he's going to embarrass them both. But she is so sweet, her kiss somehow both hungry and innocent, and he is loath to let her go.

The bacon pops and he pulls away to turn the heat down. He studies her as he flips the pancakes, and when he licks his lips he can still taste her kiss.

 _It is becoming harder and harder not to get carried away when they are together._

He clears his throat. "I thought perhaps there was a chance you hadn't eaten properly since you got home," he explains. "I know I haven't done."

She smiles brightly, if still a bit wearily. "You know me well. I went straight to bed. I just woke up half an hour ago. Shall I pour you some coffee?" She trails her fingertips across his shoulder blades as she walks past him to the coffee pot.

"Oh, um, yes," he manages. "Thanks, love." The hem of her dressing gown ends just below her knees, exposing her shapely calves. _Steady as she goes, mate,_ he reminds himself.

"I'm so pleased that you came," she says as she hands him a cup, leaning in for another kiss. "I was feeling a bit out of sorts and seeing you is just what the doctor ordered."

"Are you alright?" he asks, his brow furrowing.

She notes the way his focus shifts, suddenly on alert. "You know how it is … one patient after another for twelve or more hours at a whack. This one's an emergency Caesarean, that one's trying to VBAC a breech, another's been pushing for four hours and three of the nurses are out sick. Too long on my feet is all. I took some aspirin; I'll be right as rain. Not to worry, darling. Okay?" Her coffee cup in one hand, she catches his chin in the other and moves in close again, kissing him tenderly. He draws her bottom lip between both of his own and lingers, savouring her sweet mouth.

"Yes, alright, you've convinced me," he says with a grin when they part. "But do sit down whilst I finish this. _Please_. And not in here. I mean where it's soft. Would you like a hot water bottle?"

She knows he won't let it rest. And how many years has it been now since she's allowed someone to care for her? No, she doesn't need it. But there are far worse things than being doted on. "Yes, please," she acquiesces. She curls into the corner of the sofa and sips her coffee, listening as he moves about the flat. The rhythm of his footfalls, of cupboard doors opening and closing and bacon crackling is music to her ears; the sweetest symphony.

She is _home_ with him. In him. He just _fits_ here, in her home, her heart, her arms. Her life. There's a question she is dying to ask him when the right moment presents itself. _If_ it presents itself.

She never used to eat in the lounge. Never permitted Matthew to do it either. But with Richard here something about it suddenly seems logical. He is immaculately tidy, for one, and when he brings her pancakes and bacon and sits beside her how can she say no?

He is beginning to be more talkative around her. Not that, she thinks, he was ever reserved out of malice or anything of the sort; he genuinely seems content inside his own head. At least some of that is owed to the length of time he spent on his own and that makes sense. Just as she now is learning that there is much to be said for existing beside another in comfortable silence, he is sharing bits of his inner monologue. Over breakfast he shares the details of the new revalidation scheme. It's required every five years on a rolling basis and her turn for a first go will be in a year and a half.

"I'll hire you as my secretary now you've survived it," she tells him with a smile.

"I reckon the paper cuts will have just about healed by then," he replies.

After they've eaten she insists on washing the dishes since he cooked, so he stands beside her ready to receive them from her to dry. A few times her hip bumps his as they work, the first time unintentionally; the next only so under pretence. Knowing looks are shared between the two of them. They are moving - sometimes creeping; at other times charging full-bore - towards a blissful inevitability, and at particular moments the atmosphere positively crackles with anticipation.

 _Soon._

He sends her off to change once the kitchen is tidied and she tells him to make himself at home while she completes her ablutions. He has a habit of finding things that need seeing to when he's over - oiling squeaky door hinges and repairing the dripping kitchen tap and such, but he's just come off a stint at work nearly as long as her own and she doesn't want him fussing. As such she is gratified to find him in the lounge, sat on the sofa with his reading specs perched on the end of his nose and _The Guardian_ open to the centre spread. His feet are bare, long and slender and propped on the coffee table he built for her. He looks delectable. He looks like he was always meant to be here.

He looks like she never wants him to leave.

"Hello, darling," she greets him. Blue eyes meet hers over the rim of his specs. She always thought it was absurd, the clichéd things people would say about feeling as though their heart skipped a beat or they were walking on air or other such nonsensical metaphors for falling in love. But now when he looks up at her - when he's so loose and comfortable and ever-so-slightly, enticingly dishevelled, she finds she can't breathe for want of him.

"Hi, beauty," he answers, and it's his turn to feel at a loss. She emerges from the bedroom dressed in soft black tracksuit bottoms and a white t-shirt that plays up the warm, wonderful olive of her skin. She is barefoot, her toenails painted a deep wine-red, and her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail. He has never seen her so casual. She is elegantly understated, breathtaking as she blinks at him. He does not miss the exhaustion that still lingers in her eyes.

"Afraid I'm not terribly exciting company today," she says, because she's got to say _something_ to take her mind off the fact that she wants to lie down with him. _On_ him, actually, with her ear pressed to his chest as she drops off to sleep to the rhythm of his heartbeat. _Easy, now._ "I was going to catch up on laundry and try to sleep; perhaps nip down to the market later. Incredibly boring life I lead." She laughs self-deprecatingly.

"Would you stop apologising for being human, Isobel? You can't have slept more than a couple of hours at the hospital. _I_ can't do, and I can fall asleep anywhere! You need to rest or you'll be ill. I'm just fine, love. I wasn't planning a great deal more than that myself."

She gives him a soft, grateful smile. "Will you stay? Can you afford to? I understand if you can't, but …" She almost says it then, only she wants to be fully in control of her faculties when she does so.

"Just …" he cuts in, "... just stop, will you? I haven't seen you all week. I'm not going anywhere. Come here." He arranges himself so that he reclines against the arm of the sofa, spreading his legs to make space for her. _He wants … Really?_ She can't think straight as she settles in, her back to his chest, her head resting where she can feel his breath on the side of her neck. It's intimate and instinctive and it's funny; she'd been agonising over the _when_ and _how_ of the physicality between them, unsure of the way to move things forward. And then suddenly he'd taken care of it, without preamble, and she hadn't had to _do_ anything.

"Comfortable?" he asks, his arm coming round her waist, the palm of his hand resting on her hip.

She nods against him, not trusting her voice. Swallowing the lump in her throat she manages, "Very."

"Good. Going to read for a bit?"

She shakes her head. "Couldn't keep my eyes open right now. Save me the bits you think I ought to see?"

"Of course. Sleep now, love." He presses a kiss to the side of her head.

She drifts on the edge of sleep; that oddly protracted period when, while languishing in the grip of bone-wearying fatigue, one is hyper-aware of details typically overlooked: the ticking of the clock, the drone of car engines in the street. Richard's breathing, and the way her head moves up and down on his chest. She'd been so certain she would never feel anything like this again. _Perhaps it's not such a bad thing to be wrong from time to time._ That is the thought that pulls her under.

She awakens to find herself lying beside him with her arm around his waist and her face buried in his neck. _How long have I been asleep?_ she wonders. _How long has he been?_ Determining that it doesn't really matter, she focuses on what _does:_ her body pressed against his from head to toe, her thigh resting between both of his, his arm wrapped securely around her.

 _He loves me,_ she thinks. _**He loves me!**_ _And I love him._ And sometimes it feels just like it did with Reginald, and feelings she only ever felt with him, that she ascribed to him, come up again and she chokes. She feels conflicted in those moments, pulled in two similar-but-different directions at once and not certain which way she wants to go. Because she has to choose one, doesn't she? She shakes her head to clear the confusion. She needs to talk to Richard, and soon.

At other times the things she experiences with Richard are altogether new. Kissing a man with a moustache, for one. That had been a bit of a learning curve, rife with giggles shared between the two of them until she'd learned to claim his bottom lip like it was made exclusively for her. The sounds he makes when they kiss. When she traces her fingertips up and down his spine. _Beauty,_ he calls her. _My beauty,_ with such conviction in the translucent blue of his eyes that she can almost see herself through them, see what he sees.

There is a poignancy, she has discovered, to love in later life. She thinks he feels it too, sees it in the way his eyes roam over her form like he's trying to memorise and memorialise every detail. Each kiss is something to savour because it was such a long time coming. Because who can say how many of them they'll have? So if he stares a little too long, or if she leaves a raw patch from nibbling at the pulse in his throat; if each one says 'I love you' an excessive number of times, they are to be forgiven.

He stirs beside her, and she gives in to a longing she has had for all of her years in solitude and kisses him awake, enjoying the way his mouth transforms from impassive to pliant to languid, his tongue stroking hers though his eyes are yet to open.

It isn't something she consciously decides to do when she stretches and her hips roll against his pelvis. And it certainly isn't his intent that she should feel the way his body responds, and the instant he comes fully awake and realises he isn't dreaming, he jerks away from her, his entire body stiffening.

"No, Richard, stay. Please," she tells him in a half-whisper.

His eyes open and she can see he wants to, but he needs her to be sure.

She reaches up to smooth his furrowed brow with gentle fingertips. "Please kiss me, darling. _Stay._ "

He smiles, trapping her hand in his as she caresses his cheek and bringing it to his mouth. He kisses her fingers. "I rather like waking up next to you."

If she hadn't already been quite steadily coming undone at the nearness of him, the rasp of his burr on its own would have been enough to drive her mad with wanting him.

"I'm rather hoping there can be more of this," she replies, running her knuckles over the length of his spine.

He props himself up on an elbow, regarding her curiously. "How do you mean?"

Her heart begins to pound. _This is your last chance to back out, you fool._ She thinks of Reg, of his exhortation that she find someone worthy of all the love she has to give. _I'm going to do this, love,_ she imagines herself telling him, _but there'll never be another you._

"Isobel?" Richard touches her cheek.

"I've almost said this half a dozen times since you got here," she begins, smiling shyly. "I'm realising some things now that you … now that we're …" She shakes her head. "I'm not asking you to move in with me, because we're not twenty-five, and modern woman though I am, I'm not entirely certain that's my style. What I am saying is that with the hours we keep, it'll be a task maintaining a relationship if we only see one another _after_ work and _after_ the bills are paid and _after_ the chores are seen to. Would you fancy being here more? Staying here sometimes … a few nights a week, perhaps? No obligations; just … I love you, and your being here feels so natural. It's a bit like … oh, never mind …" her confidence falters, her cheeks pinking.

He catches her chin between his thumb and forefinger and makes her look at him. "Like what, Isobel?"

"You'll think I'm foolish."

"Try me." He nudges her shoulder playfully with his own.

"It's like you're the piece I hadn't even realised was missing, if you'll pardon the extremely tired metaphor." Smiling self-deprecatingly, she shrugs her shoulders, looking away and then back at him. "I'm happy, when for so long I'd thought myself rather past happiness. I'm pleased I was wrong."

Her admission makes him smile and he ducks his head, taking her lips in a thorough kiss. "Lovely girl," he rasps when the kiss breaks, "Do you know how long I've waited to hear you say those words? I want to be here with you as often as you'll have me. As to … _this_ …" He indicates the two of them; their posture as they lie together, and his hand at her waist drifts to her hip and then her bum, pulling her hips flush against his body.

"Ohh," she sighs in an expression of relief and surprise. Her own hand lingers at his waist as if she knows what she wants but not what she should do about it.

"Isobel," he whispers, "touch me."

She gasps in response as her inner muscles clench at the sound of his voice. Pulling the hem of his shirt free of his jeans she slides her palm beneath the fabric. They both inhale sharply when her fingertips make contact with his skin, glancing over his rib cage. He is so _warm,_ she muses with fascination. She rests the flat of her hand over his heart, looking up at him. His heart beats steadily beneath her fingertips and it takes her breath away; brings tears to her eyes.

He kisses away the teardrops that spill down her cheeks. "What's this, beauty? Hmm?" he asks gently. "Are you alright?"

She nods, smiling even as a few more tears fall. "You're so _alive,_ " she marvels. "So very much here with me." She wipes her cheeks and kisses his palm and shakes her head, trying to formulate an explanation for all that she feels, holding his heart in her hand. "I've said before that I buried most of my grief. It sneaks out in funny ways sometimes and just now …" She pauses, inhaling a shaky breath, and rests her forehead against his.

"It was a heart attack that took Reg from me. I don't know as I've ever told you. A stroke first, and he seemed to be recovering, and then …"

"Oh, darling," he gasps. He doesn't know exactly how to move through this moment with her, but he'll hold her. He'll listen. He'll promise, with everything that is his _to promise,_ to stay.

"I was just wakening up beside him, much like we are now, and I touched him, just like this." She moves her hand to press more firmly against his chest. "Only he was cold, and there was nothing. So I'm sorry. You must think me terribly strange, in the midst of such a moment, to burst into tears …"

She trails off and he jumps in, shaking his head. "Isobel, why on earth would I think ill of you? You know there are no _rules_ to grieving. It's not as of I'm just seeing you battle it for the first time, darling …"

"That's as may be," she counters, "but it's the first time you'll have seen something that we've done together bringing old wounds to the surface. And I feel so … inadequate. You deserve better than a blubbering widow who is still in love with her dead husband!" She looks away from him, pressing her hand to her mouth. _How could she say that?_ But then, this is a conversation she'd known was coming. It _has_ to be hashed out. He deserves to know up front what his reality will consist of, supposing they are to move forward.

"Isobel, don't pull away from me. Don't hide." He draws closer to her, taking both of her hands in his own. "Please hear me, love. _I'm here,_ alright? I'm not going to walk away. It might have stung a little to hear you say the words …" She winces at this, and he takes her face into his hands. "Don't," he insists. "It's nothing I didn't know. Why wouldn't you love Dr. Crawley? You were with him for more than half your life when he died. Your marriage was the sort I can only dream of one day having. I don't for a moment believe that one love must end because another has begun, sweet girl. I'm thrilled to be with you now, and for as long as you'll have me."

"You know it doesn't diminish the love I have for you - the fact that I'm still in love with Reginald," she tells him, and he isn't sure whether her defences are still up or if she's simply talking. " _It doesn't,_ Richard. And I'm not thinking of him whilst I'm kissing you or anything like that. And when we …" She meets his eyes, hard as it is for her. This has got to be unspeakably difficult for _him._ "When we make love, sweetheart, it'll be you. _All you._ " She smooths her hand over his cheek, looking up at him through her lashes. "And when we make love … that'll be forever for me, you know. I'm yours, assuming you're willing to take me on with all these battle scars."

"Precious girl," he murmurs, astonished. "Come here, will you?" She moves into his arms and he pulls her tight against him, her head on his chest as he reclines once more. "There's no one else for me, Isobel." She lifts her head to look at him and his eyes twinkle with mischief as he adds, "You daft, beautiful, infuriating, brilliant woman."

She affects a look of vexation, narrowing her eyes at him, but then she grins and he smirks and the jig is up, the pair of them having a good giggle. She lies with him for a long time as he traces patternless mazes across her back. They alternate talking with kissing and touching and dozing off and on well into the afternoon.

"I want you to always be honest with me." She will forever remember him saying these words as they walk hand in hand to the supermarket early in the evening. "I never want you to feel you've got to hide it from me when you're thinking of Dr. Crawley. You should feel free to speak about him; about your marriage, as often as you fancy. I can't promise I'll never feel jealous, alright? I am only human, after all." She squeezes his hand and smiles at this. "But I don't begrudge him a moment of the years you and he shared. He loved you well, and for that I'll be forever in his debt."

 **oOo**

They sleep together that night. Just sleep. It is the first night she has slept in the bed in nearly three years. It isn't a planned thing, which, she thinks as she lies beside him in the darkness, is likely why it came off at all.

 _It had been an evening replete with the kind of tiny details that, to an outsider, would have seemed trivial, but were, to the two of them, part of an almost magical process of discovery. They'd cooked supper, standing unnecessarily close together at the counter as Radio Two softly played. He'd found it fascinating that she added vegetables - celery and green pepper and even tiny bits of finely-julienned carrot - to her pasta sauce and that she tossed in bay leaf to season it as it reduced down. Or perhaps his interest had been something of a ruse, as he had been rather intent upon kissing the side of her neck, nibbling her earlobe whilst he wrapped his arms around her from behind. Of course she'd got him back by holding his hips and accidentally, from time to time, allowing her hand to slip into the back pocket of his jeans as he diced tomatoes for the bruschetta. He'd shown her a trick his mam had taught him before he'd moved on campus at Edinburgh. Apparently, if one rinses a colander with cold water immediately after draining pasta, giving it a quick once-over with the palm of one's hand, the colander then won't require anything more than a quick sudsing when the washing up is done._

 _It was late by the time they ate, each of them having consumed more than a full glass of wine before the food was even plated. They'd sat on the balcony, which, illuminated by moonlight, was otherworldly, the roses seeming to glow. Looking up at the floral canopy above them, he understood why she'd taken the trouble to arrange it all this way. She had reclined in his arms on the bench after they'd finished eating. As he absently twirled a soft strand of her hair around his finger, he looked down at her face in the soft light and smiled. She was asleep._

 _He had struggled for a moment with what to do. Sleep was the thing she needed most and the one hardest to come by, and he hated the thought of waking her. But she couldn't stay out here. He'd ended up leaning down close, pressing tiny kisses to her temple. "Wake up, beauty," he'd said softly, repeating his actions until she had begun to stir._

 _She'd awakened slowly, blinking at him. In her fatigue she had slurred, "'S'go to bed, Richard."_

So she'd meant it, then. _Really meant it when she'd asked him to consider staying with her some of the time. Not that he'd thought she hadn't … It was his turn for the swirling thoughts to catch up to him. It all boiled down, he decided, to astonishment at his newfound fortune. Ten years spent loving her from what he'd accepted would always be a distance, and now she was his, suddenly and at long last._

" _Richard? Stay tonight," she'd said, leaning into him, her voice heavy with sleep. No; it wasn't his imagination. She was warm and real and here before him, soft and sleepy and asking him to stay._

Say something, idiot! _He'd shaken himself. "'Course, darling. Go and get changed then and I'll take the plates to the kitchen."_

"' _Kay," she'd said as she stood, then turned back to him. "Just leave it till morning to do the washing up, hmm?"_

 **oOo**

As she readies herself for bed he turns down the covers, shedding his shirt and trousers and draping them over the bedside chair. She emerges from the bathroom in a soft cotton nightie, her hair loose around her shoulders.

"All through," she tells him, catching him by the hand as he begins to walk toward the bathroom. "Look at you," she whispers.

He watches her eyes sweep over his body from head to toe.

"My God," she breathes. "Gorgeous."

If she is unaccustomed to receiving compliments, he is even more so, and though he turns away before she catches sight of his flushed face, still she notices the redness that tinges his ears.

By the time he finishes in the bathroom, she has climbed beneath the covers, eliminating for him the uncertainty over which side of the bed to choose. As he lies down beside her, she turns off the lamp.

"Richard?' she whispers, reaching her hand out to touch his.

"Yes, darling?"

"Kiss me."

He scoots closer to her, his hand on her hip. Through the thin fabric of her nightie he feels the seams of her knickers. She is so _close_ to him, separated only by a mere inch or two and a couple of flimsy layers of fabric, and had he known this morning that he'd end up here he'd surely have chosen something other than the plain white shorts he is wearing. Not that there's anything wrong with them, to be sure, it's just … they leave rather little to the imagination. The very last thing he wants is for her to think he has any expectations. But then, he thinks, perhaps she _wants_ him to have expectations. He recalls her words to him earlier in the evening, the innocence and earnestness and _desire_ in her eyes. ' _When we make love,'_ she had said. _When._

"Sweetheart." She interrupts his thoughts. "What's the matter?"

"Isobel," he sighs, moving his hand up to tangle in her hair, "nothing is wrong, my love, except that I think I'm in trouble."

* * *

 **I really should be saying goodnight.  
I really shouldn't stay anymore.  
It's been so long since I held ya.  
I've forgotten what love is for.**

 **I should run on the double  
I think I'm in trouble,  
I think I'm in trouble.**

* * *

 **I know, I know ... I'm awful. Again with the UST? And ending the chapter like _that?!_ But that's not the end of what's written. It was as if I was handed the perfect place to break it with the Lindsey song, so I'd have been a fool to pass it up. I should be back with more (read: RESOLUTION) forthwith.  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Ahem ... ***M*****

 **It almost wasn't, if you can believe it. I know it seems strange but I have really enjoyed the protracted sexual tension between them.**

 **I put a lot of time in trying to find the perfect blend for this update. I was going for some kind of cocktail of loving/romantic/honest/angsty/sexy/real, and I hope I've hit on the majority of those points.**

 **Special thanks to meetmeinstlouie for allowing me to borrow some lines. Bits of Richard and Isobel's "sex talk" are closely inspired by a conversation that took place between them in her Richobel fic entitled Wait For Me.**

 **Friends, guests, friends who review as guests: you are lovely. Thank you for your love and encouragement!**

 **xx,  
~ejb~**

* * *

 **Previously:  
** _He_ _scoots closer to her, his hand on her hip. Through the thin fabric of her nightie he feels the seams of her knickers. She is so close to him, separated only by a mere inch or two and a couple of flimsy layers of fabric, and had he known this morning that he'd end up here he'd surely have chosen something other than the plain white shorts he is wearing. Not that there's anything wrong with them, to be sure, it's just … they leave rather little to the imagination. The very last thing he wants is for her to think he has any expectations. But then, he thinks, perhaps she wants him to have expectations. He recalls her words to him earlier in the evening, the innocence and earnestness and desire in her eyes. 'When we make love,' she had said. When._

 _"Sweetheart." She interrupts his thoughts. "What's the matter?"_

 _"Isobel," he sighs, moving his hand up to tangle in her hair, "nothing is wrong, my love, except that I think I'm in trouble."_

* * *

The tips of his fingers feather over her brow as it furrows. "In trouble? Why?"

 _Innocent._ She isn't, but she _is_. "Oh, sweet girl … Do you really have no idea how beautiful you are?"

"Honestly," she huffs, feigning exasperation. "I'm not a young maiden of virtue unspoiled, you know. You haven't got to shield me from it, Richard. It's incredibly flattering, really. I hadn't thought myself capable of eliciting that sort of response anymore."

He gapes at her. "You're kidding me, aren't you? Darling, I adore you. You're a brilliant physician with the sharpest wit - _and tongue_ \- of anyone I know. But those qualities were not the first ones I noticed when we met. And they aren't the ones I'm concerned with just now, with you so close."

"Oh no?" she asks, grinning, as she props herself up on her elbow, leaning over to take his lips in a teasing kiss.

He laughs against her mouth. "You're wicked, Isobel." He loses himself in the sweetness of her kiss once again.

"I'm in love, Richard," she replies as she turns on her side, her back toward him. Smiling at him over her shoulder she adds, "For the last time." She lets him feel the weight of those words for a moment before telling him, "Hold me."

His arm wraps around her waist, the palm of his hand resting on her rib cage. The curve of her bum fits snugly into the cradle of his hips, his thigh between both of hers.

"How's that, beauty?" he whispers, a warm puff of breath next to her ear.

 _This_ is what she has missed the most, all these lonely years. "Richard," she sighs, "am I dreaming?"

He chuckles and she feels the vibration where his chest touches her back. "Soon, I hope," he says, nibbling her earlobe.

"You feel so good to me," she whispers, her voice thick with emotion.

"I have waited so long to hold you like this." His voice breaks. If she is close to tears, it sounds as if he might be closer still.

He moves his hand a little, brushes the underside of her breast with his thumb, and she sucks in a breath. He freezes behind her and she guesses he hadn't meant to touch her there, but when he moves to pull his hand away she covers it abruptly with her own.

"Please don't stop."

When his hand moulds to her flesh she lets go. He kneads her and her nipple stiffens in his palm.

"Ohh," she breathes, half a sigh, half a moan. He brushes his thumb across the peak and she hisses. Her back arches, pressing her flesh into his hand. Pressing her bum into his groin. He twitches at the contact, hardening. This time he doesn't try to put distance between them.

She feels good. He loves her. He wants her.

She is already thinking about his hands on her bare skin. She reaches back, holds his hip to communicate that she wants this. Feels the surge against her bottom as he hardens further in response to her touch. She circles her hips. He scrapes his thumbnail across her nipple through the thin cotton of her gown. Warmth spreads throughout her belly, waves building in intensity as muscles tighten of their own volition.

He touches her like she is a treasure. She loves him, when she thought that she would live the remainder of her days in solitude. He is _here_ with her, making her feel young and desirable. Making her _feel,_ after so much time spent convincing herself she didn't.

He pinches her nipple and she clenches again. _Hard._ She wonders at that, at what phenomenon is responsible, what exactly it is that she's feeling. Even after all of her training she's yet to read a suitable explanation. She'd have thought it was some sort of womb contraction, were it not for the fact that she no longer has one.

 _Damn._ It's part of a conversation she needs to have with him before they move forward. There are things she still can't talk about. _Fiona._ The final secret she and Reg ever shared. But Richard needs to know she isn't playing with a full deck, in a manner of speaking. _Doesn't he?_ If she doesn't tell him beforehand, he'll have the shock of a lifetime when he sees her in all her glory.

He feels her body tense and can tell the second she's no longer present with him. "Isobel? Did I hurt you?"

She rolls onto her back and switches the lamp back on. Bringing her hand up, she brushes the backs of her fingers across his cheekbone. "No, my darling. It's nothing like that." She leans up to kiss him reassuringly. Lying back down against the pillows, she sighs. "I think we need to talk."

He winces visibly. She should have chosen different words. Reg never did take well to that phrase either. _Right. Try_ _again._

"We both know where this is going," she says softly, unable to hide a smile, "and there's nothing I want more. Only I think it's important we're on the same page before we go any further."

"Yes, alright," he says. His brow furrows deeply. "I told you I'll wait as long as you need …"

"I know, darling. You've been nothing but wonderful. I said I don't want to wait long, and I _don't._ But you should know … I've only ever been with Reg. And that's been a long time now." She pauses. Her heart hammers in her chest.

"Isobel," he whispers, smoothing his hand along her arm. "If this is about marriage, I did ask. Drunkenly, of course, and a bit myopically, but—" He attempts to lighten the mood by poking fun at himself, but he means it too.

"Sweetheart, you're not on trial here," she tells him gently. "I've told you before that I was a fool. I _do_ want to discuss that again soon, but it's not what I'm talking about now."

"If it's a question of experience, I can assure you I've not had a great deal more. I'm not going to _rate_ you, or any such nonsense. You're all I want, you know. Always." He looks at her with such sincerity that her heart lurches. She is not the only one with a painful past, not the only one with secrets that only time and trust will reveal.

 **She is not the only one with scars.**

"Beautiful man," she breathes. "Thank you for that. If our line of work has taught me anything at all, it's that one must never make assumptions where sex is concerned."

He smiles. "And that our specialty doesn't make it any less awful to talk about!"

There he is, always saving her. She laughs, and the tension is broken. "Quite! What I'm trying to say, though it likely seems a forgone conclusion, is that menopause is our friend …" She takes a breath. "... And even if it wasn't, I've had a hysterectomy. Partial, you know ..."

He can see it has taken a great deal of courage for her to share this with him and he pulls her close, dropping kisses on her forehead, the tip of her nose, her lips. "Will you tell me what troubles you about that? With regard to us, I mean." A moment later he adds, "Unless you can't bear to. In which case we'll table it for another time."

She pulls him down to her and kisses him hard on the mouth. He is handling this with such grace, giving her full control of the situation. Making it safe, the way he always has done. She should have known. Drawing a breath to steady herself, she almost does it - tells him everything. _Almost._ In the end she can't say the words. Can't dredge up the deepest of her darkness in the midst of such joy. So she settles for the bits that pertain to him. To them.

"Well, the circumstances were emergent … there was a failed D&C. I took a very long time to heal. And the scarring was - is - significant. And it all took place after Reg died, so I've not, um … I haven't made love since."

The concern he feels for her is written all over his face before he says a word. "You're worried that it'll be painful for you," he concludes, running a soothing hand over her flank.

She nods. "Or that my body won't respond, no matter how much I want you. Or that you'll be put off by the appearance of … things." She looks away from him. "I've counselled hundreds of patients over the years, telling them to take it slowly and they'll be just fine, but you know … 'Physician, heal thyself …' It doesn't work!"

"Oh, Isobel, don't you see?" he exclaims, cradling her face in his hands.

She frowns. "See what?"

"When you came out of the bathroom, just before I went in, you gave me quite the once-over. What did you see?"

Her cheeks colour a bit at having been caught out. "I saw a very fine specimen of masculinity … in his undershorts … in my bedroom. Why?"

He draws the covers down and lies on his back with his hands behind his head. "I'm missing half a rib, darling. Have another look."

A long, thick white scar runs diagonally across his rib cage on the left hand side. When he inhales, she can see the absence of bone beneath the skin. "Jesus," she whispers, tenderly tracing the pad of her thumb along the scar's length. "Richard, how …?"

"I was with the QDG," he explains, "part of the peacekeeping force in Lebanon."*

Her eyes widen as comprehension dawns. " _Major_ Clarkson. All this time I thought it was just an endearment your nurses contrived. You're very specialised, then!" She can't believe she hadn't fit the pieces together, having known him all this time.

He waves a dismissive hand. "All a long time ago. At any rate, our unit was caught in crossfire and I took a bullet. The wound wasn't penetrating but the rib was shattered, and the path of least resistance was resection to avoid pneumothorax. But you know field hospitals. Conditions were rather primitive. They got the job done, but the result isn't pretty."

She huffs at the last words. "Sod that! Doesn't matter what it looks like; _you're_ beautiful. And you're alive."

The fire in her eyes makes him smile. "Thank you for proving my point. A scar indicates that you're a survivor, Isobel. Far from diminishing your beauty, that strength enhances it."

His eyes hold hers for a long moment in silent contemplation.

"Does it hurt?" Her voice is almost childlike as she brushes gentle fingertips across his wound once more.

He shakes his head. "Every so often in the damp I get a twinge, and when it's really bitter cold. Most days I forget all about it. What about you?"

Almost instinctively her hand goes to her abdomen, her palm pressing against the spot. Unlike him, she thinks about her scar every day. "No physical pain," she tells him. "There was for a very long time - almost a year - but no more."**

He hears what she doesn't say: the incision may have healed a long time since, but the wound to her heart runs deep. But he doesn't press. There will come a time when it will all bubble to the surface - her past hurts; his, and they will face them together. But that time is not now.

"Show me?" he asks her. _Please, let me see you. Please trust me; let me in._

She holds his gaze as she lies back down. He sees it every day, and so does she: hysterectomy scars, Caesarean scars. Worse things by far. There is not a patient anywhere who doesn't feel self-conscious submitting to a clinical examination of such things. But it's another thing altogether to subject oneself to such scrutiny when the clinician in question is the object of one's affection.

Slowly she raises the hem of her gown, watching the way his eyes drink her in as she bares her thighs to him, her hips, her belly. Pushing down the waistband of her knickers, she reveals the scar just above her hairline. Once red and angry, it has faded to silver over the years. It is not the thing that draws his gaze, however. No; he is transfixed by the golden expanse of creamy skin, the flare of her hips and the indentation of her navel, the smatterings of freckles scattered across the part of her rib cage exposed to his view.

"What scar?" he asks, his fingers tracing the softly sloping plane of her abdomen. "All that I see is a beautiful woman …" He pauses to whisper in her ear, "... whose skin I want to feel touching mine from head to toe." He nibbles her earlobe with the edges of his teeth and sucks on the soft skin of her neck.

She gasps, turning her face toward him and latching hungrily onto his lips. "I love you," she whispers against his mouth in between frenzied kisses.

"Can I ask you something?" he says as they lie back against the mattress. She hasn't lowered the hem of her nightie and he takes advantage of the opportunity to stroke her warm, soft skin, delighting in the quivering of her abdominal muscles beneath his fingertips.

"I'd say I'm rather captive at this point, darling," she tells him breathily. His touch is driving her mad. There is one thing certain: her body's instinct to desire the man she loves has not suffered harm.

He laughs throatily. "Has anything we've done so far caused you any discomfort?"

She closes her eyes against the sensation as he kneads her lower back. Discomfort is the very last thing she feels. She shakes her head. "Not at all. I'm not sure I've ever felt so …" She chokes, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "So loved. Desired. Beautiful. Safe. So _much,"_ she finishes.

 **oOo**

She sleeps that night. She who has not slept a full night for the better part of two decades actually _sleeps_ \- the deep, restorative kind her body is desperate for, and in her bed, no less. At some point, as she'd lain along the length of Richard's body, her head resting over his heart, their lazy, sleepy kisses and soft grinding had ceased, exhaustion winning out.

She awakens in the morning incredulous. To begin with, she is in the _bed!_ And this after having slept eight and a half hours. And for the first time in almost a third of her life, she is not alone.

She thinks of the recurring dream that has been the source of much of her anxiety in the small desolate hours. The one in which her dream-self would awaken in Reginald's arms with the first stirrings of his arousal pressed against her bum. She would sigh happily, pushing back against him. Just as they would be about to capitalise on their circumstances, she would wake in earnest to the cold reality of solitude.

But with this morning has come the dawning of a new life. The warmth surrounding her is _real._ Richard's breath comes in rhythmic puffs against the back of her neck. His arm is around her waist, her back against his chest. And he mustn't still be sleeping, judging by the way his thumb moves back and forth, caressing her hip.

Is this a reprieve sent from on high after year upon year of sleepless nights, her head and heart and body aching? _Oh, but love is magical when it catches you unawares!_

"Richard," she whispers, "Richard, are you awake?"

"Good morning, my love," he answers, his voice thick and gravelly with sleep and irresistible to her ears.

"So you _are_ really here. I half expected my alarm to go off and to find I'd dreamt it all," she tells him.

"No alarms today, darling girl." _Oh, his voice!_ "Tell me, does this feel like a dream?" He kisses the back of her neck and presses his palm to her belly, pulling her hips flush against his body.

"God!" she exclaims, laughing. "I've died. I've died and gone to heaven, because nothing on Earth feels so good."

"I'm here, love. I'm here with you always." He surges, hardening as she grinds her bottom against him.

 **Her nightmares seem so distant now.**

His hips snap forward as hers roll back. Heat is coiling inside her, damp between her legs and isn't _that_ a surprise! It works! _She_ works.

"I want you," she moans. Wants _this,_ but naked.

He pulls at her shoulder, trying to turn her toward him. Suddenly she springs up out of bed.

"What are you doing? Are you mad?" he asks.

"Cleaning my teeth," she answers. "Not kissing you like this!"

"You're a loony," he tells her admiringly. He realises her idea has merit and takes a moment for himself in the lavatory when she's done. She goes to the kitchen for a glass of water and by the time she reaches the doorway he is back beneath the covers.

"Take that off," he tells her. The tone of his voice is gentle and kind, but he is not asking.

She giggles until she sees the hunger in his eyes.

Heart in her throat, she takes a deep breath and hurls herself into the abyss as she lifts the edge of her nightie. Her arms cross in front of her body as she pulls the garment up and off, dropping it on the chair beside the bed.

 _Soft, slender, graceful, strong;_ the words that come to mind as his eyes roam over her bare form. "Isobel," he breathes. "Come here, my darling."

His eyes never stray from her body as she walks toward him. He sits on the edge of the bed and she stands between his legs. The heat of his gaze threatens to set her skin alight, and the words he utters nearly make her knees give way.

"You are exquisite."

She mewls in response, tears of joy and relief springing to her eyes. He wraps his arms around her middle, hugging her to him, and she folds at the waist to plant kisses in his hair.

When she lifts her head, he presses his lips to her belly, slowly working his way upward. His eyes fixate on her chest, the rise and fall of her breasts with each breath she takes. She watches him watching her and captures his face in her hands. She doesn't wait for him to ask the question.

"Yes," she murmurs, nodding her head. "Please."

With aching slowness he reaches out to trace the contours of her breasts. His touch causes her to cry out, raises gooseflesh on her skin, makes her abdominal muscles constrict.

He takes his time savouring the look, the feel of her as he fills his palms with the gentle weight of her flesh. He strokes a nipple erect, rubbing the tip with the pad of his thumb, rolling it between his fingers.

"My _God_ ," she moans, her head falling back, lips slightly parted. She is so sensitised, so beautifully responsive to his touch. Experimentally he touches the tip of his tongue to the hardened peak and the loveliest obscenity falls from her lips.

"I didn't think you knew that word," he teases.

She laughs, and it's then that she realises the true wonder of love at this stage of life. Would her thirty-year-old self have recognised the beauty, the sheer joy of laughter in the midst of making love? She doubts it.

"I want to put my mouth on you," he whispers, his tongue tracing the shell of her ear.

"Yes," she hisses, curling her fingers into his scalp. For a moment that could be merely an instant or hours in its duration, he pauses. Waits. Lets them both feel the energy, the tension, the trust and love that have all culminated in this: two hearts once broken now beating in synchrony; two bodies drawn together in the closest, truest expression of love between mortal beings.

And then he fixes his eyes on hers and drags the flat of his tongue across the taut peak of her breast, sucking it into his mouth as he pinches its twin between his thumb and forefinger. Her knees give way and she falls forward, into him. Moving an arm to her waist he steadies her as she straddles his legs.

He has long since lost count of the number of times he'd imagined this scene. Here, now, as she rises above him, her neck and chest curving toward him in a long, graceful arch; her eyes glazed with lust blinking at him, sultry and innocent beneath the curl of dark lashes; her clear, lovely voice crying his name and God's and _Jesus my darling don't stop,_ reality far and away eclipses his dreams.

He continues to bathe her breasts with lips and tongue until she is writhing in his lap, circling her hips against him. Even through the fabric of his shorts and her knickers he can feel the wet heat of her, and he aches with the longing to bury himself deep within her.

He releases her nipple with a _pop,_ kissing it and then the other softly. "Isobel," he murmurs, "I _want_ you, beauty. Can I touch you?" He has never felt love for anyone like he feels for her, and he would spend the rest of his days holding her while she sleeps if that's what she wants. He doesn't want to frighten her, to do anything she isn't sure of.

" _Please,"_ she breathes. She knows it's no longer a question of waiting. The icy edge of trepidation that rises up for a fraction of a second is swept away by the knowledge that she loves him; that beyond loving him, she _needs_ him. She could easily live the rest of her life without a man by her side - the past fifteen years illustrate that truth brilliantly - but she cannot go on without _this man._

Taking hold of her waist, he lifts her gently off his lap to kneel on the mattress. He traces the waistband of her knickers, letting her know his intentions. "Alright?" he asks, lifting her chin so that their eyes meet.

"Yes," she says throatily, nodding. Her eyes slip shut as he pulls them down, cupping her buttocks in his palms. For a long moment he simply holds her like this, revelling in the warmth of her flesh, the way she fits against him.

Stacking pillows against the headboard, he sits back, drawing her knickers the rest of the way off as she reclines against his chest. He rests his chin on her shoulder, his arms wrapping around her from behind, and touches her reverently, tracing his fingertips over the ridges of her collarbones, the contours of her ribs. He draws circles around her nipples and watches them stiffen and she cries out sharply. Her back arches in a wordless plea for _more; closer,_ and he complies, cupping a breast in one hand as the other hand trails down her belly with deliberation, past her navel, stopping to rest just above her pubic bone. He traces the shape of her scar like it's something to be treasured, she thinks, and before she can voice it his words catch up to his actions.

"Beautiful," he whispers, right against her ear. He takes her hand in his and brings them both to rest there, at the apex of her thighs. "Do you trust me?"

"Implicitly," she answers.

"Show me."

She hesitates. "Richard, I don't …"

"I doubt you do it often, my love," he interrupts, "but you're human. Show me what feels good to you." He nudges her legs apart gently, drawing circles on the damp velvety skin of her inner thighs. The fact that he's touching her so close to where she wants him while studiously avoiding where she needs him most tightens the knot inside of her. She groans in frustration and presses her fingers against herself to assuage the ache.

His hand joins hers and he opens her gently, tracing her labia. "God, you're wet, darling," he rasps.

"Mmm," she replies nonsensically, making him grin. "Touch me."

He watches the movement of her hand as her index finger brushes against her nub, rubbing in a delicate circular motion. He mirrors the action and she moans, rolling her hips sharply upward. Her pressure increases, her strokes lengthening as her arousal heightens, and he moves their fingers to rest at her opening.

"Do you?" he asks, and it occurs to her that she doesn't know exactly what he's getting at. Is it ' _Do you ever— ?'_ or is it more like ' _Do you want— ?'_ But it doesn't matter. Her answer is the same:

"Yes!"

Before she has the chance to worry, to brace herself against potential pain, he slips a finger inside her. Her writhing ceases; she grows completely still, her breath caught on the inhale.

"Are you alright?" he asks, watching for signs of discomfort. What he finds is something else entirely; her face, when she cranes her neck to kiss him, is lit up in a beatific smile.

"Oh, darling," she gasps against his mouth, "oh _God!"_

"Will you—?" he asks, covering her hand with his own at her centre. She moves her fingers, showing him that she's willing, and slowly he begins to pump his finger in and out of her.

She can't believe that there is no pain, that - much to the contrary - she _feels_ more than she has ever done before. So much sensation that it's almost too much to process all at once. Could it really be that sex, for her, is going to be _better_ now than it had been in her younger days?

He curls his finger inside her, pushing upward toward her pubic bone, and she lifts her hips, rutting against his hand. She goes quiet, overcome by the heat between them, the tightening of her muscles, the myriad of tiny things she's feeling for the first time ever. The run-up to release has never been so blindingly intense for her and she's powerless against it.

"Richard!" she cries, dangling on the precipice.

"Let go, Isobel. Let go. I've got you."

Safe in his arms, she lets herself fall. "I love you, Richard! I love you, I love you …" she chants as her sex clenches. From his position he can see the flush that colours her chest. She is so beautiful he thinks his heart might break as she comes and comes and comes for him.

"Oh," she breathes as her peak recedes, "oh … oh … oh..."

He lays her down, removing his shorts and lying beside her, gathering her against him. "How did that feel, beauty?" he asks, brushing her hair back away from her face.

"It's never … I've never … _come_ like that. I thought it was never going to stop!" She is adorably wide-eyed, provocatively unguarded, and he thinks it's one of her most irresistible qualities.

"You were perfection, my love. So bloody beautiful." He kisses her with abandon and she reaches a hand between them to touch him, wrapping her fingers around his hot, silken length. "Christ, Isobel!" He thrusts into her hand, unable to stop himself. "Do you want to …" he pauses, gasping as her thumb swipes over his frenulum, "... do you want to try? …"

"Inside?" she finishes, continuing to stroke him. "Yes!" She holds his hips as she rolls onto her back, positioning him above her.

"Like this? Are … are you sure?" he asks. He just doesn't want to hurt her.

She nods, her hair fanning out across the pillow. "I need to see you."

He ducks his head to take her lips. "If anything makes you uncomfortable, we'll stop."

She kisses him quiet. "Richard, I trust you. I'm fine, darling. _Please."_

He takes himself in hand briefly and she moans; he teases her entrance and she hisses. "Isobel, I love you," he tells her, his gaze fixed on hers as he pushes forward into her heat.

She holds her breath and reaches for his hands, linking their fingers on either side of her head. He eases forward slowly and she grimaces, squeezing his hands.

He kisses her forehead. "Do you need me to stop?"

"No," she insists, "nothing like that, it's just … it's been so long. I want this." She wiggles her hips to encourage him.

Letting go of her hands, he balances his weight on his forearms as he withdraws slightly, then pushes forward, repeating the movement until he is seated fully within her.

"Richard," she sighs, her head lolling back. Now, with the initial sting of protracted abstinence behind her, all she feels is _him._ She is so full, so deliciously sensitive. She can feel his pulse at her cervix. She is awash in physical sensation, but it's what this intimate connection symbolizes that brings tears to her eyes. They are truly _one_ now; he in her and she in him.

"Am I hurting you?" he asks, and she feels his body stiffen.

"Oh, darling, no!" She smiles even as fresh tears roll down her cheeks. "No, my love, you feel _so_ good. I just … I just can't believe …" She gestures to indicate them, their intimate embrace, this moment that she thinks will now forever be the defining moment of her life. "I love you, Richard! I need you so very much. I'm yours. All of me."

He reaches for her hands again, drawing back only to push slowly forward, so slowly that she feels every inch of him as he moves in her. She has never felt so much, never been driven so divinely mad by this kind of movement alone. Her inner muscles squeeze down on him independent of her control.

"Jesus, Bel," he pants, and a new nickname is born. "Do that again!"

" _I_ didn't do it!" She laughs joyously. She is lifting her hips now with each of his thrusts, rolling up into him, wanting to give as good as she gets. This time it is intentional when she squeezes him, thrilled both by the way it feels as he slips against _that_ spot inside her and by the profanity that falls from his lips, breathed harshly against the curve of her neck just before his mouth latches onto the sensitive skin. "Oh, my love," she exclaims, "you're everything!"

Soon it threatens to overwhelm him - the softness of her body beneath him, her tight, wet heat, the feel of her legs wrapped around his waist, her high, keening cries. He leans down to kiss her breasts, suckling deeply, and he _feels_ it: the strong contractions of her orgasm, pulling him in deeper, making her muscles twitch and her breathing ragged and her words a lovely senseless jumble.

"Move, keep moving, please!" she manages, and he does, drawing out her pleasure while hastening towards his own. Safe in the knowledge that he isn't hurting her he thrusts hard once, twice, three more times before his release overtakes him and he buries his head in her neck, crying out her name and ' _I love you'_ and beautifully primal-sounding words she vaguely recognises as Gaelic.

He makes to roll off of her as he returns to his senses but she tightens her legs around him. "Stay with me," she says, all wide-eyed forthrightness. "I don't want to let you go. Stay with me." And so he lies with her, still inside her, their chests pressed together as bodies cool and heartbeats slow. The kisses they share in these moments are achingly tender, marking their wonderment at what has just taken place and whispering promises of what is still to come.

He sleeps again, after, once they've both visited the bathroom and she has wrapped herself, much to his dismay, in the sheets. She holds him, lulled by the susurrations of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest and the beating of his heart beneath her palm. She is sated, exhausted, but her mind runs a mile a minute. A thousand thoughts battle for primacy, but she keeps coming round to the fact that she feels _different_ now, as different as she had felt after she and Reg had lost their virginity to one another. It's a feeling of completion, and she can't help but laugh as she realises the dual meaning. She has certainly experienced her fair share of sexual completion, much to her delight. And the fact that Richard has given her that gift solidifies the sense of absolute and total wholeness she feels now that he is hers, and she is his. Fears and longings that have been long-standing have one by one found their answer in his arms, his voice, his quiet steadfastness and straightforward logic.

He had made mention once of marriage, and she'd thought him to be simply waxing poetical at first. Then, when she'd realised he meant it, she'd deflected his comment in a bid for self-preservation, certain that her heart couldn't take the loss that always seemed to consume great love. But she had been wrong, gloriously so, and when she had taken one last leap of faith it had been straight into his waiting arms.

Sometimes there is no bittersweet symphony, she realises. Sometimes love comes around again and there is _only_ sweetness. It is instinct, after all she has come through, to be always waiting for the other shoe to drop, to believe there is no gain without loss, but in Richard she thinks the cycle might be broken at last. There is no question in her mind: she is his now; heart and mind, body and soul.

And soon, if he will have her, in name as well.

* * *

 ***QDG - 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, senior regiment of the line of the British Army. This unit was part of the Multinational Force in Lebanon, an allied peacekeeping force created in August 1982 following the ceasefire between Israel and the PLO.**

 ****Physical pain following stillbirth/D &C/hysterectomy - I am basing this on the accounts of those in my personal acquaintance who have undergone these types of procedures with complications, but I know that this is not the experience of most. Even routine deliveries near term can wreck havoc on the anatomy for a long time afterward (as I well know).  
**


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